What Do You Read?: Inquiring minds want to know.

Shipka's Forum Prompt:
Reading Practices

As ever, bb posts must be at least 250 words and posted by Wednesday at 5:00pm.

P.C. Paul's Response ·  B. Mechairia's Response ·  K. Bailey's Response ·  C. Gatton's Response ·  R. Desai's Response ·  N. Barsky's First Response

A. Campbell's Response ·  B. Bauhaus' Response ·  E. Jones' Response ·  E. Berman's Response ·  A. Sheikh's Response ·  M.J. Bowen's Response

A. Reed's Response ·  E. Woodward's Response ·  S. Miller's Response ·  S. Norfolk's Response ·  K. Zajdel's Response ·  N. Barsky's Second Response

M. Purcell's Response ·  N. Horstman's Response

         The last time I had a chance to do pleasure reading was last summer. During the winter break I read about six to eight books in the topic of semiotics so I don’t consider that pleasure. During the summer I read a whole bunch of stuff. The Holy Bible, The Qur’an, Bhagavad Gita, James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake,” Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein,” Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” Herman Melvile’s “Billy Budd,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Grey,” Jim Wallis’ “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left doesn’t Get It,” and Azar Naafisi’s “Reading Lollita in Tehran.”

         Why?

         To increase my vocabulary, pick up ideas for creative writing, to understand what is good writing, and to broaden my knowledge base. For all too many years I had consumed mathematics, statistics, engineering, science, and computer books which is a different type of reading. I can write in the 3rd person and active voice seamlessly without thinking about the writing style as the human element is removed from all of these texts as the agent.

         I read newspapers such as Catonsville Times and The City Paper just to keep up on my Journalism writing but never for pleasure. The sections would be strictly the current news. I hate The Sun. I’ll read the Washington Times or The New York Post rarely. I obtain news from Drudge Report or the Savage Nation (Michael Savage). Why? See propaganda and the news media at my Visual Literacy page, in particular, the poster titled "You Write What You Are Told!"

         Much of the reading I have been doing is research reading in scholarly journals by the pound looking for things that require primary research because I am struggling to get myself published. I’m looking to make a contribution to prove myself as a scholar so I can have a smoother path in the Ph.D. researcher track. I still love writing erotica and would love to team up with someone who has a gothic mentality.

         I also read music lyrics. For me lyrics are a form of poetry but the poets will chew that statement up and spit it out. Poet’s claim music lyrics are not the same because of the refrains, the structures, and the rhythms are not the same. Here I think what the poets mean is song writers are concentrating on content rather than form. I really am not clear as to what they mean and either that is because they are being vague or I do not understand their nomenclature.

A response to P.C. Paul's "Pleasure????" by B. Mechairia
My first comment is that you have a steady list of great novels there. It seems most of them however I read in school, not for pleasure-- this includes the Bible and Qu'ran.

         Awesome Post Paul!

         P.S. I will contest that music lyrics are the sh$^!

A. PUBLISHED STUFF OF SORTS
My early summer read was a very delightful book called "Flatland." The novel is by Edwin A. Abbott. Since his copyright expired anyone can read the novel at: http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/flatland/ . It is a must read in my opinion.

The last piece of literature that I sat down and enjoyed took me the majority of summer to complete; it was Leaves of Grass. I normally do not read poems. I have certainly never read them to the extent at which I read Leaves of Grass. Whitman is the man!

B. WEBSITES AND SUCH
These are the top 3 websites that I frequently visit:

1. Democracynow.org
   (My independent media source-- if you have the means I highly recommend you get one)
   
2. Facebook.com
   (A college-based friends network, catch the latest gossip and see scandalous pictures)
   
3. UMBC.edu
   (It's obvious I know but I spend a lot of time on the various functions of this website--a must mention)

C. READING MUSIC AND JAMMIN' OUT
I'm not sure this counts but I play guitar religiously so I read music and lyrics on a daily basis. The reason I read so much of this stuff is because I can put the material I read directly into practice.

I read some lyrics and notes and they can mean something completely different once they leave the page. This instant gratification is a lot of what I look for in "pleasure reading."

Thanks for reading!

A response to B. Mechairia's "Double your Pleasure" by P.C. Paul
You’ll probably hate me for this because who needs more work but in 75 words or less for the two books you recommend can you tell us why we should read them. In other words, can you write an informative abstract or a jacket blub that tells us more about the book and generates interest in reading it. Sell me.

         The reason I ask is because I won’t even bother unless you can demonstrate its worth my time. My time is an extremely precious resource and if I could be reading that, why should I read this.

US WEEKLY
One of my favorite things to read would have to be US Weekly or any other kind of celebrity gossip magazine. Every time I go to the grocery store, I make sure to grab the new magazine. Most of them do not change much from week to week...TomKat is still pregnant, Brad and Angelina are still traveling, Jessica and Nick are still not together. But I just love to read about it. I realize that some of the stories in these magazines are completely made up but they still make me happy to read.

NUTRITION FACTS
Another thing that I enjoy reading are the nutritional facts on food items that I buy. I am actually not an extremely health conscious person, but I do like to buy food that is healthy for me most of the time. I like to compare the nutritional facts of foods that are fat-free with other foods to really see the difference. A lot of times the fat-free foods are worse for you. This can be very time consuming when I go to the grocery store because I like to read the facts on everything that I buy. An average trip is usually way over an hour for me but I really enjoy doing it.

NOVELS
I put this third on my list, because I rarely have time to do this. I really do enjoy to read certain novels, although I do not have a lot of time to do so during the school year. If I do find time, I usually read mystery novels. James Patterson is one of my favorite authors. I like when I can read a book and not want to put it down. It's hard to keep my attention when I read, and these kinds of books definitely do it!

A response to K. Bailey's "Pleasure Reading" by P.C. Paul

US WEEKLY
What about the gossip rags like the World Weekly News (Is that what they are called), the ones with the "40 lb cat" or "My Wife Gave Birth to an Alien." If the line is really long I’ll grab one of those to prevent getting tense from nothing to occupy my mind. (This is actually rare for me because I tend to shop at 1 a.m. but then there is only one register open so sometimes it can be worse than daytime.) The writing is so out there I would actually like to write for these rags for a year or two.

NUTRITION FACTS
"Another thing that I enjoy to read are the nutrition facts on food items that I buy. I am actually not an extremely health conscious person, but I do like to buy food that is healthy for me most of the time. I like to compare the nutrition facts of foods that are fat-free with other foods to really see the difference. A lot of times the fat-free foods are worse for you. This can be very time consuming when I go to the grocery store because I like to read the facts on everything that I buy. An average trip is usually way over an hour for me but I really enjoy doing it." I did not think of this but I read everything too. The problem I have with this practice is I cannot find anything to eat. Too much saturated fat, too much unsaturated fat, too much sodium... by the time I am done, I'm empty-handed because everything I pick up, I end up throwing back. I become completely discussed and end up buying nothing. The worst thing I ever read was the stats on a Hostess Fruit Pie. A few years ago I bought one from a vending machine because I was desperate. I used to eat these once in a while as a kid but then all this information was not on the package. I (depending on your perspective) fortunately or unfortunately read the nutrition information and found it was either 55 to 60% saturated fat. I was so disgusted reading this information I tossed the Hostess Fruit Pie into the trash and went hungry. I could not bring myself to putting the thing in my mouth after reading the information. The pie was literally a bar of sugared fat. :-P

         Hmmm....I wish I had more time to pleasure read...but somehow in an odd way, I've learned to enjoy the readings of those that I have to read... whether this be in the academic or work setting. At work, readings such as articles of incorporation--in other words, legal forms--are not as lifeless to me as before. At first when I was offered the position of handling general ledger accounts, processing payroll, conducting minutes, and handling inventory for five companies, I thought I would hate it. I didn't want to read/analyze financial reports or dive into tax forms. But as I began to read these forms, at first came tolerate them, and then they became time passers, and finally, pieces of reading that intrigue me somehow. Why? I think it's the syntactic structure and legal jargon that interests me. Each are so formulaic that yes, they are boring, but at least you know what you're getting yourself into--in other words, they are consistent (predictable.) After awhile, I have realized that they will no longer be a challenge for me--so I do believe there will be a dropping point for me, and I won't have any more interest in reading and interpreting them. I do think, however, that reading financial accounts will never lose interest for me because it's like a puzzle you are taking apart and putting back together again. Everything must balance. Financial reports do in fact tell stories and I find them interesting to analyze and solve.

         So now that people think I'm this conservative--"make you go to sleep," dull-a** kind of person, I will get into other things that I enjoy reading...

         I enjoy reading travel magazines! I don't have much of a chance to do so... as a matter of fact, I just threw away a Travel Magazine that I had sitting on the cocktail table of my living room that was dated June 2005! I enjoy reading about different places, experiences, the best rated restaurants, hotels, and sites to experience, etc. I would love to travel around the world one day (who doesn't have that dream?!?), but until then, reading travel narratives and magazines is an experience of its own. I become involved in the narrative so that I am living through someone elses travelling experience.

         I also like to read things in different languages. It's fun to try and interpret what's going on in the text of a different language. It appears so chaotic when you can't really read the text. I have a Spanish magazine and French magazine lying on my cocktail table and from time to time, I enjoy browsing through them. The way the letters are shaped and jumbled together to form words are fun to observe. Of course, I'd also like to be multi-lingual one day, so maybe this is why it interests me to view texts in other languages.

         I am also a sucker when it comes to celebrity gossip magazines. I don't necessarily buy these magazines and they aren't first on my to-buy list each week, but I will sit down and read these types of magazines if I see them sprawled on the table, floor, etc. of my friend's house. If I'm in line at the grocery store, I will let my eye browse the magazines on the stand and will usually pick one up and devour as much text as I can until it's my turn to pay-out at the register. I would like to think my life isn't too dramatic and would like for it to stay that way, but reading about drama in other people's lives is another story! I am a woman, right? What woman doesn't like to read and share gossip?

         If I log onto my AOL IM service, I don't generally use it to talk with friends anymore, but instead, to view everyone's online profile. Even more, I love to view and read pictures posted on webshots or other photo-posting websites. I find it fun to read the title/descriptions/comments that people post under their pictures as well as read into their pictures sometimes. I think it's fun and I KNOW I'M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO DOES IT! I CAN'T BE, right?

         Of course, I enjoy reading novels. I used to read novels non-stop and wouldn't get up off my a** until I finished, but at this point in my life, it's hard to get back into novel reading. I like to devote all my time when beginning a novel. I really dislike the whole stop and go when reading a novel, so I won't read one unless I have the whole time to devote reading from beginning to end. Of course, I may have to re-program myself because I don't think I will ever have the time to read an entire novel in one sitting, not in this frame of my life at least.

"An Experiment in Non-linear Text with a Word Processor" a response to C. Gatton's "An Array of Pleasure Reads" by P.C. Paul
Please find my MS Word attachment as the format and engineering of the original post is retained which was altered by Blackboard.

An Experiment in Non-linear Text Using Microsoft Word (you must have Adobe Reader in order to view this file.)

"An Explanation for the Post" an explanation of P.C. Paul's response text to C. Gatton

Hello Crystal,

I’m sure at this point because of my response post you probably think I am a mental patient on a weekend pass. Everything I write, say or do within the "Shipka Spaces" is designed with an intent, purpose, and goal. Now I will provide the "inside dope" on what that post was about.

         This is an excerpt from my 324 2nd C.O. Goals and Choices under the heading "What’s Your Process?"

         Thursday, April 13 is the last workshop day and I wait to go last because I am feeling so run down getting three and four hours of sleep since we came back from spring break. I toss out my three best ideas, which are business cards, the UMBC Take-out testers (which is my favorite), and "You Can’t Get There From Here." I don’t think I can articulate the take-out food testers correctly because two of my peers gravitate towards the personal narrative of my academic career. I my mind this is the hardest one to do and I do not understand the work the business cards are doing. I have to contact Shipka about my Heads-up for my 407 presentation so I explain my concern about this project also (fig. 18).

         Friday, April 14, I am working on all four of Shika’s projects at the same time. This split in my attention this reminds me of the non-linearity of hypertext documents on the web. I have already decided that I would like the end product of the authorless text to be a web page. The fragmented connecting to various documents within the narrative would demonstrate the use and affordances of a hypertext document. This places the reader in control of reading the narrative in linear fashion or allows the reader to jump around the document creating his or her own reading path. The reader will have ultimate control of the document and can choose what to read and what to ignore (fig. 19).

Saturday night while on the MTA bus returning home while reading Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe, and Sirc’s book Writing New Media, I find my thought stimulated in their argument as to why we format text linearly. Their argument as to why word processors are only capable of creating linear text is a strong argument.

         Case in point, it is difficult to string text in formats other than linear text because of one: of the ‘space’ (8 1/2 by 11 and 8 1/2 by 14), and two: because computer programmers have decided that word processors should lay out text in a linear path. Unfortunately, I do not have access to some of the programs that Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola, Selfe, and Sirc suggest for writing non-linear texts, in other words, writing text in artistic shapes which can be done with software programs such as Macromedia’s "Director" and "Dreamweaver", Adobe’s "Photoshop" and "Premier" or Corel’s "Poser" and "Bryce" nor do I have the time to learn these specialized software programs.

         Now that my imagination has been stimulated, I would like to write my text or narrative in the forms/visual displays of road maps, flow diagrams, charts, and in the shape of such objects as cars, buses, trains, and planes, even bicycles to play with the theme of travel and the roadblocks one finds in their journey through life in attempting to attain their goals. I would love to do this because I want to work with a web page and a web page would allow me to do some nonlinear formatting. The best I will probably be able to do is write linear text but break up that text through the means of creating hypertext links to documents on the web creating a non-linear reading path if the reader chooses to use this format. This would place the reader in control now as an active user of the text and allow them to pick and choose which texts to look at, which to ignore, and in what order they read the various links (fig. 20).

         When I arrive at home I check the 324 and 407 Blackboard sites to see if my peers have posted anything new. Crystal Gatton becomes my hapless victim in her 324 post of Reading Practices for my experiment in attempting to create non-linear text with the restrictions built into a word processor. I take most of her text and my responses and play various games with making my response text non-linear to experiment with things I might do with HTML.

         (In this space the original post to you is shown as it was originally constructed with the heading... Figure 21: An example of an attempt to write non-linear text with a word processor.)

         Of course this post will most likely be ignored by Crystal Gatton but it does demonstrate to me the limitations of the word processor in attempting to write non-linear text.

         So ends the entry of your contribution to the process of "this" C.O.

         Also in Goals and Choices is a section titled "Acknowledgements" where you have been credited with the following contribution to "this" C.O.

         Next, a thanks has to go to Crystal Gatton as being my hapless victim in my experimenting with non-linear text using a word processor. After my 407 Blackboard post responding to the presenter’s (one of them being Crystal) questions explaining "Flipper" the sock puppet and my 324 response to Crystal’s response of the Personal Reading Practices post she probably thinks that I am a mental patient on a weekend pass. Everything I write and every sentence I write within the "Shipka Spaces" is deliberately engineered for a purpose. The post to Crystal was not an exception but an experiment to demonstrate that when one attempts to create a non-linear text with a word processor one finds themselves constrained by the software program.

         The book "Writing New Media," your text being at the right place at the right time, and Naphtali’s post about his "Pleasure Reading," the three of you helped me in formulating an argument which ties together the idea of transportation and the reasons for my constant changes in reaching my academic goals playing on the theme "You Can’t Get There From Here." Thanks for your help.

         This is especially true when it comes to murder mysteries (mainly, I read Agatha Christie's novels.) By reading such a novel, I get to transport myself into a different world. For the span of the story, I get to be a 'Sherlock Holmes,' so to speak, as the main character solves the mystery. The reason I like to read things about real people is because I'm able to learn about things going on in real life by doing so.

         On that note, I also enjoy reading books like "Tell Me Why." I admit that, for the most part, the information I discover in these books passes in one ear and out the other. Still, these books teach me about basic things that people don't always stop to think about. "Tell Me Why" is particularly easy to follow as it does not use technical jargon when explaining, for instance, why does a solar eclipse occur.

         In sum, I 'pleasure read' for two reasons: 1) to escape from reality and transport myself into a different world, and 2) to learn new things.

A response to R. Desai's "Reading for Pleasure" by P.C. Paul
"I completely agree with everyone else that reading for pleasure is extremely hard to do with school. And for me, with all the reading that I do for classes, 'pleasure reading' is sometimes the last thing I want to do in my free time."

         When you read all the time one finds it difficult to read just for the sake of reading. I always have a book. I think the difference is having to read something and choosing to read something.

         "When I do read for pleasure, I love reading murder mysteries. I also enjoy reading about real places, people, and events. Despite the differences between the two kinds of things I like to read, I think the reason I like to read is because doing so allows me to escape in a way from reality for a short time, or better yet, from the stress of classes, work, etc."

         I think this is an important reason why we read. To immerse ourselves in a different world for a period of time. Reading of this sort also allows us to explore other lives safely.

         "This is especially true when it comes to murder mysteries (mainly, I read Agatha Christie's novels.)"

         I still think she is one of the best. Always an easy read too. Usually I can read her novels in one sitting. I am a lousy mystery reader because others try to read into the novel and predict the outcome. I just let the novel unfold and whoever the murder is becomes unexpected for me. I do not bother to trace the clues because I already over-think as it is.

         "By reading such a novel, I get to transport myself into a different world. For the span of the story, I get to be a 'Sherlock Holmes,' so to speak, as the main character solves the mystery. And reason that I like to read things about real people and such is because I'm able to learn about things going on in real life by doing so." I find that reality is much stranger than fiction. Cliché but true.

         "On that note [how academic], I also enjoy reading books like "Tell Me Why." I admit that, for the most part, the information I discover in these books passes in one ear and out the other. Still, these books teach me about basic things that people don't always stop to think about. "Tell Me Why" is particularly easy to follow as it does not use technical jargon when explaining, for instance, why a solar eclipse occurs. So, in sum, I 'pleasure read' for two reasons: 1) to escape from reality and transport myself into a different world, and 2) to learn new things." I think many of us do.

NOVELS
I stopped reading much fiction when I entered college, but I still have my favorites that I keep returning to. My taste may seem to have no rhyme or reason: the fiction obsessions I have had include Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Alan Dean Foster, Douglas Adams, John Steinbeck, and Neil Simon. Of course, I tend to favor stuff somewhere in the horror and sci-fi arena, but not necessarily straight sci-fi, horror, or fantasy. The novels I love tend to have the following characteristics:

1. They transport me to another world
2. They are full of vivid sensory prose that puts me right in the moment
3. They appeal to my fears and anxieties
4. They expand my perspective

The novels I have obsessed over in recent years include Alan Dean Foster's Parallelities and Richard Matheson's What Dreams May Come.

LANGUAGE BOOKS
A couple of years ago, I began to wonder about the history of the English language, a topic I knew nothing about. I started reading numerous books on this subject, a spiraling interest that finally led me to change my major. I seriously considered going for linguistics, but I decided that I was more interested in the art of language than the science of language. Still, I retain a certain devotion to linguistics.

         By far, my favorite writer on this subject is Geoffrey Nunberg, whom I have mentioned in class before. He's a linguist who does commentary for an NPR show I have never listened to ("Fresh Air"), and he has also written much of the usage material in the American Heritage Dictionary. But I got into his writings when my parents got me his book for a birthday present, which is just a collection of essays based mostly on his "Fresh Air" pieces.

         The book is called The Way We Talk Now, and it is certainly an acquired taste. Put simply, he looks at modern culture through the lens of the words we use. Some people will think his observations mind-numbingly trivial. But I find his essays insightful, and witty at the same time.

         For example, in one essay written around the time of the first Gulf War, he notes how some TV announcers coined the word Baghdadi. He goes on from there to note that most nationalities in the Middle East end in an -i, and it's unusual for a suffix to be reserved for one area of the world. He then connects this small observation with the unique history and relationship the West has traditionally had with the Middle East.

         Another essay comments on how the words force and violence are used as synonyms yet have a subtle distinction in meaning, which he connects to the way we tend to view abuses in power as premeditated, but violence from citizens as erratic.

         There are also a lot of interesting anecdotes in the book, like one where he inserted the combined speeches from the 1996 Republican convention into a summarizing software and it returned a surprisingly eloquent summary. But when he tried the same thing with the Democrats' speeches, it returned, in Nunberg's words, "word salad."

         Here are a list of some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• "If machines could play games no better than they could produce human language, they'd have a hard time keeping up with an eight-year-old at tick-tack-toe."
• "You have to feel sympathy for those drivers who roll around all day in company vans with stickers on the bumper that say 'How am I driving? Call 555-1234.' It's just a sophisticated version of the 'Kick me' game, though I suspect the trucking companies justify it by saying that they want the drivers to feel a sense of ownership about their turn signals."
• "Wherever you look, irony's moving out and sarcasm's moving in. Johnny Carson was ironic, David Letterman is sarcastic. Peanuts was ironic, South Park is sarcastic."
• "I'm not sure if that Massachusetts newspaper editor would have gone ahead with gerrymander if he could have foreseen the day when shagadelic would be looking down on us from every billboard."
• "The number of people who sit down at a keyboard every day has probably increased tenfold over the past few years--quite a few of them are people whose writing used to be seen only on their refrigerator doors. They're the people who were never able to spell very well, but over the telephone you couldn't tell."
• "Was the outcome of an American presidential election really going to depend on the interpretation of a word [shall] that no American since Henry James has known how to use properly?"

Okay, I'll stop.

MOVIE REVIEWS
I probably want to be a movie critic someday. And definitely the critic whose reviews I have read the most is Roger Ebert. I'm not sure if he's the best critic in town, and I can probably list all the things that annoy me about him--a natural consequence of having read him so much. Nevertheless, I admire this guy's skill a lot. He's analytical and witty at the same time, and he makes it look easy, yet no other critic I've read is able to achieve that balance so well. Here's a favorite Ebert quote of mine, from his review of the original Shaft:

"These may all be clichés, but, hell, a private-eye movie without clichés wouldn't be worth the price of admission. We don't go to Westerns to see cowboys riding ostriches. The strength of Parks's movie is his willingness to let his hero fully inhabit the private-eye genre, with all of its obligatory violence, blood, obscenity, and plot gimmicks. The weakness of Shaft, I suspect, is that Parks is not very eager to inhabit that world along with his hero."

A response to N. Barsky's "Obsessive Reading" by P.C. Paul
"Reading can be a chore, but I have always had my handful of books that I'm obsessed with. And I mean really obsessed: I read them cover to cover over and over and over, skipping to parts I like, savoring particular sentences, wearing the books out and winding up having memorized whole passages without even having tried. Why some books appeal to me like this is not easy to say, and any explanations I have will always be after the fact. In this post, I'll talk about three general categories: novels, language books, and movie reviews." [I think this is true of all people who love books and language. Obsession? This word has negative connotations. I prefer the phrase "A labor of love."]

NOVELS
"I stopped reading much fiction when I entered college, but I still have my favorites that I keep returning to. My taste may seem to have no rhyme or reason: the fiction obsessions I have had include Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Alan Dean Foster, Douglas Adams, John Steinbeck, and Neil Simon. Of course, I tend to favor stuff somewhere in the horror and sci-fi arena, but not necessarily straight sci-fi, horror, or fantasy. The novels I love tend to have the following characteristics:

1. They transport me to another world
2. They are full of vivid sensory prose that puts me right in the moment
3. They appeal to my fears and anxieties
4. They expand my perspective

The novels I have obsessed over in recent years include Alan Dean Foster's Parallelities and Richard Matheson's What Dreams May Come."

[Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" I carry with me when I get on a plane. I can re-read this novel over and over without becoming bored. The entire novel is so complex that I easily forget everything Adams said in it. Every time I read it, no matter how many times, I laugh as hard as the first time I read it. It is just so imaginative how he strings together streams of consciousness and elaborate schemes in logic or illogical logic as the case may be.]

LANGUAGE BOOKS
"A couple of years ago, I began to wonder about the history of the English language, a topic I knew nothing about. I started reading numerous books on this subject, a spiraling interest that finally led me to change my major. I seriously considered going for linguistics, but I decided that I was more interested in the art of language than the science of language. Still, I retain a certain devotion to linguistics."

[I think in studying communications one cannot ignore the linguistic aspects of language. As you said, I am not interested in exploring the scientific aspects either.]

         "By far, my favorite writer on this subject is Geoffrey Nunberg, whom I have mentioned in class before. He's a linguist who does commentary for an NPR show I have never listened to ("Fresh Air"), and he also has written much of the usage material in the American Heritage Dictionary. But I got into his writings when my parents got me his book for a birthday present, which is just a collection of essays based mostly on his "Fresh Air" pieces."

         "The book is called The Way We Talk Now, and it is certainly an acquired taste. Put simply, he looks at modern culture through the lens of the words we use. Some people will think his observations mind-numbingly trivial. But I find his essays insightful, and witty at the same time."

         [Sounds great! I have an affinity for mind-numbing reading and complexity. Remember, that which we may consider as trivial is most likely that which has been rendered "invisible"; therefore, these are the areas to most critically analyze.]

         "For example, in one essay written around the time of the first Gulf War, he notes how some TV announcers coined the word Baghdadi. He goes on from there to note that most nationalities in the Middle East end in an -i, and it's unusual for a suffix to be reserved for one area of the world. He then connects this small observation with the unique history and relationship the West has traditionally had with the Middle East." [Fascinating.]

         "Another essay comments on how the words force and violence are used as synonyms yet have a subtle distinction in meaning, which he connects to the way we tend to view abuses in power as premeditated, but violence from citizens as erratic." [Also fascinating.]

         "There are also a lot of interesting anecdotes in the book, like one where he inserted the combined speeches from the 1996 Republican convention into a summarizing software and it returned a surprisingly eloquent summary. But when he tried the same thing with the Democrats' speeches, it returned, in Nunberg's words, 'word salad.'" [Hahahaha. "Brain Salad Surgery" (An old album title from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer also referred to as ELP.)]

         Here are a list of some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• "If machines could play games no better than they could produce human language, they'd have a hard time keeping up with an eight-year-old at tick-tack-toe." [Considering that a machine (computer) only mechanically searches a database for an answer. How the computer is reviled in "Data Structures" and also the study of "Algorithms." Computers really are dumb, over-glorified, finite adding machines. I addition as much as Computer Scientists would like to "think" they are "thinking outside the box" their "thinking" is limited by the affordances and the constrictions of the "box" (CPU) itself and until such time that the Computer Engineers step outside the box in their "thinking" of how to design the hardware, the Computer Scientists are constrained in their "thinking" of how to design "software" that "thinks" outside the box. Case in point, that it is difficult to string text in formats other than linear text because of the "space" (81/2 by 11 and others) computer programmers have decided is the way that word processors should function. Refer to my attachment to C. Gatton for a visual example.]

  [This also brings up another problem I have with my 2nd C.O. I would like to write my text or narrative in the forms/visual displays of road maps, flow diagrams, charts, and in the shape of such objects as cars, buses, trains, and planes, even bicycles to play with the theme of travel and the roadblocks one finds in their journey through life in attempting to attain their goals. My argument that I did not recognize before is people tell you that, "America is a great place to live. You have the freedom to be anything you want." My argument is that "No, we do not have the freedom to do whatever we want as it is a world of reality and with that reality we are encounter physical constraints, economic constraints, sociological constraints, political constraints, psychological constraints, historical constraints, constraints of personal capabilities and abilities, constraints of sex, religion, race, and ethnicity. Even so I am sure someone else reading this can find still more constraints which create a situation of "You can’t get there from here."]

• "You have to feel sympathy for those drivers who roll around all day in company vans with stickers on the bumper that say 'How am I driving? Call 555-1234.' It's just a sophisticated version of the 'Kick me' game, though I suspect the trucking companies justify it by saying that they want the drivers to feel a sense of ownership about their turn signals." [It is a ‘Kick me’ game I had thought of calling the number numerous times for safe and unsafe driving but never bothered because my world is filled with so many other things that I must that I do not have the time to take on one more thing.]
• "Wherever you look, irony's moving out and sarcasm's moving in. Johnny Carson was ironic, David Letterman is sarcastic. Peanuts was ironic, South Park is sarcastic." [This is an interesting change in not only language but also how the society is changing.]
• "I'm not sure if that Massachusetts newspaper editor would have gone ahead with gerrymander if he could have foreseen the day when shagadelic would be looking down on us from every billboard." [I do not understand this. Please explain.]
• "The number of people who sit down at a keyboard every day has probably increased tenfold over the past few years--quite a few of them people whose writing used to be seen only on their refrigerator doors. They're people who were never able to spell very well, but over the telephone you couldn't tell." [Yes and now we need a reinvention of the pen and pencil. We need pens and pencils with automated spelling correction. I have not only seen this in my own hand-written texts (I was a lazy speller to begin with and find myself becoming progressively worse) but also in oral interaction with others in the English department. At least three times I have heard someone say, including Shipka, "How do you spell…" as the computer allows us to do some things faster and do things we could never do before (a gain), there is also a loss because we rely on the computer to do simple tasks for us so we can think on higher levels.]
• "Was the outcome of an American presidential election really going to depend on the interpretation of a word [shall] that no American since Henry James has known how to use properly?"

Okay, I'll stop.

MOVIE REVIEWS
I probably want to be a movie critic someday. [Please consider pursuing this. I would love to see your critics, as your insights in critical thinking can be quite stimulating.] And definitely the critic whose reviews I have read the most is Roger Ebert. I'm not sure if he's the best critic in town, and I can probably list all the things that annoy me about him--a natural consequence of having read him so much. Nevertheless, I admire this guy's skill a lot. He's analytical and witty at the same time, and he makes it look easy, yet no other critic I've read is able to achieve that balance so well. Here's a favorite Ebert quote of mine, from his review of the original Shaft:

"These may all be clichés, but, hell, a private-eye movie without clichés wouldn't be worth the price of admission. We don't go to Westerns to see cowboys riding ostriches. The strength of Parks's movie is his willingness to let his hero fully inhabit the private-eye genre, with all of its obligatory violence, blood, obscenity, and plot gimmicks. The weakness of Shaft, I suspect, is that Parks is not very eager to inhabit that world along with his hero."

[I understand your thinking but never fully agreed with Ebert’s observations. But then again I never agreed fully with Siskel’s views either. It’s a shame Siskel died as the two counterbalanced each other marvelously and the most interesting movies I found were when the two were in disagreement with each other. I can’t tell you which point of view I leaned towards because it always varied and I was never really leaning towards one or the other. They always did bring out good point to examine though.]

A response to P.C. Paul's post by N. Barsky
"Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" I carry with me when I get on a plane. I can re-read this novel over and over without becoming bored. The entire novel is so complex that I easily forget everything Adams said in it. Every time I read it, no matter how many times I laugh as hard as the first time I read it. It is just so imaginative how he strings together streams of consciousness and elaborate schemes in logic."

[I first read it in fourth grade, after having gotten into the Infocom text adventure, which Adams also wrote. The thing I remember most from the game is that in order to access the ship's computer, you have to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time. Since that is logically impossible, you first must enter your own brain at the microscopic level and remove the "common sense" particle, thus enabling you to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time.]

"I'm not sure if that Massachusetts newspaper editor would have gone ahead with gerrymander if he could have foreseen the day when shagadelic would be looking down on us from every billboard."

I do not understand this. Please explain.

[Yeah, the quote was out of context and I doubted anyone would understand it. Nunberg was talking about portmanteau words, words formed from two other words (example: smog = smoke + fog). Gerrymander was coined in the early nineteenth century, when this kind of word was rare, but the twentieth century has seen a huge burst in portmanteau words (motel, brunch, blaxploitation, Reaganomics, netiquette, Frappucino, and so on), and Nunberg wants to know why. "Why have people given us this pullulation of portmanteaux? In the words of the old punchline, because they can. Since the time of Elbridge Gerry, most successful portmanteau words have been coined by newspapers, press agents, government agencies, and corporations--people with the power to broadcast their coinings via the full apparatus of modern publicity. What better way to signal your influence (power) than by putting a stamp on the language itself?"]

“Yes and now we need a reinvention of the pen and pencil. We need pens and pencils with automated spelling correction. I have not only seen this in my own hand-written texts (I was a lazy speller to begin with and find myself becoming progressively worse) but also in oral interaction with others in the English department. At least three times I have heard someone say, including Shipka, "How do you spell…" as the computer allows us to do some things faster and do things we could never do before (a gain), there is also a loss because we rely on the computer to do simple tasks for us so we can think on higher levels.”

[It's a recurring theme in this course that I'm interested in exploring, and which I may incorporate into the second assignment--the idea that as technology progresses we become increasingly dependent and less self-sufficient, kind of like the way the more cognitively advanced mammals tend to be more dependent on their parents than, say, sea turtles. For me, the movie that captured this idea the most strongly was The Gods Must Be Crazy, where a tribe who've never been exposed to the modern world finds an empty Coke bottle and they have no idea what it is but it proves an eminently useful tool, but consequently causes more discord than they've ever experienced before. (Note: I'm not getting into the issue of whether the movie was an accurate portrayal of Bushmen. It's just a nice modern fable about human nature.)]

“Please consider pursuing this. I would love to see your critics, as your insights in critical thinking can be quite stimulating.”

[Thank you. I have written about 40 or so reviews for the imdb user comments. My review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was placed by an editor on the movie's main page for an entire year after the film's release--then they started rotating it with other user reviews. In the meantime, the review was plagiarized on several websites. I have a weird suspicion that somebody involved in the film read my review and listened to some of my criticisms, because there is a scene in the second Harry Potter movie that seems to parallel a very specific comment I made, and which was not based on anything in the second book.]

“I understand your thinking but never fully agreed with Ebert’s observations. But then again I never agreed fully with Siskel’s views either. It’s a shame Siskel died as the two counterbalanced each other marvelously and the most interesting movies I found were when the two were in disagreement with each other. I can’t tell you which point of view I leaned towards because it always varied and I was never really leaning towards one or the other. They always did bring out good point to examine though.”

[I'd be hard pressed to find anyone I "fully agree" with on all occasions. Ebert has his quirks, including his tendency to overpraise junk, and his excessive focus on the technical aspects of filmmaking. On the other hand, his thorough knowledge of film history and technique is impressive, and his glib writing style makes it clear why he was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. (As of this date, only one other critic has won: Stephen Hunter.)]

[I was a fan of the Siskel and Ebert show, and it's disappointing there is so little footage of the old episodes on the Internet. They had an affinity that Ebert and Roeper have not been able to match, maybe because Siskel had a straight-arrow quality, whereas Roeper feels more calculated and less sincere.]

A response to N. Barsky's post by P.C. Paul
"I first read it in fourth grade, after having gotten into the Infocom text adventure, which Adams also wrote. The thing I remember most from the game is that in order to access the ship's computer, you have to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time. Since that is logically impossible, you first must enter your own brain at the microscopic level and remove the "common sense" particle, thus enabling you to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time."

[I don’t know what year fourth grade was so I do not usually use such associations when speaking to others when accounting for things. I may use such markers internally in my thought processes but I have to convert them back to years for others to understand. I discovered the text after seeing the BBC TV series of the book. We both know that was awful but it was strange enough to make me pick up the book to find out what it was about. I lent out my first copy when it was spread across several books and never got it back. Then I purchased a hard copy with trilogy in one book only to have my entire library and most of my other possessions stolen from a storage unit. :-@ ]

[Of course it is impossible to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time but this is a deliberate play on meditation focus questions given by Zen Buddhists priests to stimulate a "satori" in the pupil. Many of the questions they ask have no answer and the priest sometimes decides the answer to the question by the pupil is not necessarily an "oral" answer. It may be a change of face, physical being, attitude, gesture, or any of a number of non-written, non-verbal forms of communication. All of this recognizes that the natural state of the natural world is not order but carefully organized "chaos" drawn together and loosely maintained through "strange attractors." I know you know what I am talking about especially when one begins to explore Western Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and Religion.]

"Yeah, the quote was out of context and I doubted anyone would understand it. Nunberg was talking about portmanteau words, words formed from two other words (example: smog = smoke + fog). Gerrymander was coined in the early nineteenth century, when this kind of word was rare, but the twentieth century has seen a huge burst in portmanteau words (motel, brunch, blaxploitation, Reaganomics, netiquette, Frappucino, and so on), and Nunberg wants to know why. 'Why have people given us this pullulation of portmanteaux? In the words of the old punchline, because they can. Since the time of Elbridge Gerry, most successful portmanteau words have been coined by newspapers, press agents, government agencies, and corporations--people with the power to broadcast their coinings via the full apparatus of modern publicity. What better way to signal your influence than by putting a stamp on the language itself?'"

[Ah ha! These organizations, newspapers, press agents, government agencies, and corporations--people with the power to broadcast have the "means" to create words and language and have the power and money to sustain the "Myths" as Roland Barthes would in a sense say. Actually he would have called them the bourgeois from Marxist theory.]

"Thank you. I have written about 40 or so reviews for the imdb user comments. My review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was placed by an editor on the movie's main page for an entire year after the film's release--then they started rotating it with other user reviews. In the meantime, the review was plagiarized on several websites. I have a weird suspicion that somebody involved in the film read my review and listened to some of my criticisms, because there is a scene in the second Harry Potter movie that seems to parallel a very specific comment I made, and which was not based on anything in the second book."

[That is really interesting and we have become connected in so many various ways that one does have to sometimes guard their own intellectual property because it has become so easy to "steal" ideas back and forth to the point that no one knows where the original idea came from. I know that many scholars in the academic world guard their intellectual secrets and only confide in discussing their plans and formulating their ideas with trusted colleagues because of this very problem. Someone can take your idea and beat you to the "publishing punch."]

[Oh yes I remember this movie and didn’t it revolve around what the Bushmen did with the coke bottle as a gift from the Gods. I do not remember the movie clearly but only vaguely but enough so that I can follow your point. Are you telling me that you haven’t grounded anything yet? I thought you had the 2nd C.O. within the first 10 minutes it was out the day it was handed out.]

A response to P.C Paul's post by N. Barsky
"I don’t know what year fourth grade was so I do not usually use such associations when speaking to others when accounting for things. I may use such markers internally in my thought processes but I have to convert them back to years for others to understand. I discovered the text after seeing the BBC TV series of the book. We both know that was awful but it was strange enough to make me pick up the book to find out what it was about. I lent out my first copy when it was spread across several books and never got it back. Then I purchased a hard copy with trilogy in one book only to have my entire library and most of my other possessions stolen from a storage unit."

[You've told me you haven't seen any recent movies. The recent movie version of Hitchhikers is pretty good. It seems to have been custom-made for fans, since it fails to explain certain elements--I'm sure many audience members were scratching their heads wondering what the hell this whole towel business was about. And it was a mistake to cast Americans in key parts, even the illustrious John Malkovich, though thankfully there are also several Brits in the picture. Perhaps my fears are overblown, since I met at least one person who loved the movie and had never read the book. The movie takes great liberty with the book, though I'm told the new ideas all came from Adams himself, and some of them are hilarious. The scenes dealing with hyperspace are particularly inspired, and the parts with the Guide are brought to life with neat animated sequences. And it was a joy to finally see stuff like the sperm whale sequence shown with the special effects it deserved. The film is still uneven and lacks much of the book's verbal humor, but then how exactly do you convey a line like "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't" on screen? The BBC version had that line and many others, but what works on the printed page doesn't necessarily work when uttered by an actor in front of a camera. One of the major problems with the BBC version was that it didn't do nearly enough to adapt the humor to the new medium. The new movie understood this and was a lot better as a result.]

"Of course it is impossible to hold "tea" and "no tea" at the same time but this is a deliberate play on meditation focus questions given by Zen Buddhists priests to stimulate a "satori" in the pupil. Many of the questions they ask have no answer and the priest sometimes decides the answer to the question by the pupil is not necessarily an "oral" answer. It may be a change of face, physical being, attitude, gesture, or any of a number of non-written, non-verbal forms of communication. All of this recognizes that the natural state of the natural world is not order but carefully organized "chaos" drawn together and loosely maintained through "strange attractors." I know you know what I am talking about especially when one begins to explore Western Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and Religion."

[Adams has some similarities with Gary Larson of Far Side fame. (The Prehistory of the Far Side is another one of my book obsessions.) Both specialize in a kind of humor that seems on the surface like just silly non sequiturs, but actually contains a lot of satirical commentary on science, philosophy, and religion, yet you don't have to understand this deeper level in order to laugh at the jokes--it just adds a new layer for those who are able to pick it up.]

"That is really interesting and we have become connected in so many various ways that one does have to sometimes guard their own intellectual property because it has become so easy to "steal" ideas back and forth to the point that no one knows where the original idea came from. I know that many scholars in the academic world guard their intellectual secrets and only confide in discussing their plans and formulating their ideas with trusted colleagues because of this very problem. Someone can take your idea and beat you to the 'publishing punch.'"

[I'm not really upset about this incident: I take pride in the fact that I was plagiarized because it shows the power of my ideas that people would want to use them without proper credit. It's satisfying to realize that all the people who cribbed my review cannot write as well as I can, and that, unlike them, I have the ability to write this well on a regular basis.]

"Oh yes I remember this movie and didn’t it revolve around what the Bushmen did with the coke bottle as a gift from the Gods. I only remember the movie vaguely, but well enough to follow your point."

[The movie is one of a kind. It begins with footage from a nature documentary, then spins this entirely fictional tale about Bushmen who find a bottle (though the "actors" were in fact real Bushmen who had no prior exposure to modern society). The main Bushman goes out into the world in an attempt to get rid of the evil bottle, and there he meets "civilized" people for the first time (though the movie tries to suggest the "primitive" state is superior). The film then turns into a Chaplin-esque romantic comedy with a South African political plot thrown into the mix. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I still have a lot of appreciation for it today. For the sake of our discussion, however, watching approximately the first thirty minutes is enough to see the point I was making.]

"Are you telling me that you haven’t grounded anything yet? I thought you had the 2nd C.O. within the first 10 minutes it was out the day it was handed out."

[I was bursting with ideas from the beginning, but I wouldn't say I had "grounded" any of them, and I don't think I will feel grounded until the end of this week (I hope!).]

A response to N. Barsky's post by P.C Paul
"…since it fails to explain certain elements--I'm sure many audience members were scratching their heads wondering what the hell this whole towel business was about."

[Hahahaha. That’s one of the most important parts of being a Galaxy Hitchhiker, and of course the towel has to be a striped one.]

[I would definite have trouble without British accents, it would be like having Mrs. Slocum speaking with an American English accent in "Are You Being Served?"]

"Perhaps my fears are overblown, since I met at least one person who loved the movie and had never read the book."

[Well there it is, I don’t think that book could ever come over well into a movie because there would be so much lost.]

"The movie takes great liberty with the book, though I'm told the new ideas all came from Adams himself, and some of them are hilarious."

[When was he consulted for this movie, after all he’s dead now you know?]

"The scenes dealing with hyperspace are particularly inspired, and the parts with the Guide are brought to life with neat animated sequences."

[With today’s special effects that could be done well especially the engine of… did the Heart of Gold have the waiter in the Italian Bistro? That was a very visual scene.]

"And it was a joy to finally see stuff like the sperm whale sequence shown with the special effects it deserved."

[Oh no the sperm whale, I forgot all about him. How many different things was he reincarnated into only to meet his demise by the same person?]

"The film is still uneven and lacks much of the book's verbal humor, but then how exactly do you convey a line like "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't" on screen?"

[That one line just brought me to tears laughing. The verbal humor was the funniest part because Adams would string together entire streams of consciousness threading together incompatible ideas like sewing needles without eyelets. And what about those people who still think that digital watches were a neat idea?]

"The BBC version had that line and many others, but what works on the printed page doesn't necessarily work when uttered by an actor in front of a camera. One of the major problems with the BBC version was that it didn't do nearly enough to adapt the humor to the new medium. The new movie understood this and was a lot better as a result."

[The BBC was also operating on a shoestring budget, I mean look at portions of Dr. Who or Blake’s 7. On the other hand they did a much better with "Red Dwaft."

"Adams has some similarities with Gary Larson of Far Side fame. (The Prehistory of the Far Side is another one of my book obsessions.) Both specialize in a kind of humor that seems on the surface like just silly non sequiturs, but actually contains a lot of satirical commentary on science, philosophy, and religion, yet you don't have to understand this deeper level in order to laugh at the jokes--it just adds a new layer for those who are able to pick it up."

[Yes Gary Larson is another. It is fabulous how these people string together ideas that are completely disconnected and demonstrate there is a connection if one uses a French curve to get there.]

"I'm not really upset about this incident: I take pride in the fact that I was plagiarized because it shows the power of my ideas that people would want to use them without proper credit. It's satisfying to realize that all the people who cribbed my review cannot write as well as I can, and that, unlike them, I have the ability to write this well on a regular basis."

[It certainly demonstrates that you have definite potential as a critic or even as a movie consultant. Oh, it came to me, Like Christopher Loyd when he was in "Taxi" and said, No self-respecting Romulin would ever speak like that. And almost 20 years later, there’s Christopher Loyd playing the part of a Romulin on screen. Many of us recognized why that was funny.]

"The movie is one of a kind. It begins with footage from a nature documentary, then spins this entirely fictional tale about Bushmen who find a bottle (though the "actors" were in fact real Bushmen who had no prior exposure to modern society). The main Bushman goes out into the world in an attempt to get rid of the evil bottle, and there he meets "civilized" people for the first time (though the movie tries to suggest the "primitive" state is superior). The film then turns into a Chaplin-esque romantic comedy with a South African political plot thrown into the mix. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I still have a lot of appreciation for it today. For the sake of our discussion, however, watching approximately the first thirty minutes is enough to see the point I was making."

[Yes I follow you. There is another movie that demonstrates how the "white man" took Australia away from the… The Natives pull up in a rowboat where these white Australians are having picnic. The leader asks something to the effect of "what is this place land called? The whites respond, "Barbaque Area." And the Native responds, "We declare rights to this place "Barbaquearea" and being throwing them out for resettlement.]

"Are you telling me that you haven’t grounded anything yet? I thought you had the 2nd C.O. within the first 10 minutes it was out the day it was handed out."

[I was bursting with ideas from the beginning, but I wouldn't say I had "grounded" any of them, and I don't think I will feel grounded until the end of this week (I hope!).]

"Oh I see, I was wondering how you could look at a piece of paper like 'this' one and ground a project so easily. I know I can come up with some half-baked ideas quickly only to learn that as I think them through that they make no sense at all, don’t do any work, or cannot generate enough in content or Goals and Choices. That makes me feel a little better, not much but a little."

A response to P.C. Paul's post by N. Barsky

"Well there it is, I don’t think that book could ever come over well into a movie because there would be so much lost."

[As long as I enjoy the film, I don't complain. Even though no movie adaptation can match its source material, on the other hand a movie can do things which a book can't. The 1939 version of Wizard of Oz is an improvement on Baum's novel even though it cuts out about half of the events and changes key elements, like suggesting Dorothy is dreaming.]

[My only objection to the filming of Hitchhikers is that now the secret's out for us geeks. Previously, I could say "babel fish" and take pleasure in the fact that most people wouldn't know what I was talking about, or else would think I was talking about the web translator. Then again, this movie seemed designed only to appeal to a limited crowd, and it's no wonder it did poorly at the box office.]

"When was he consulted for this movie, after all he’s dead now you know?"

[The movie took several years to make, and Adams does have screenwriting credits.]

"With today’s special effects that could be done well especially the engine of… did the Heart of Gold have the waiter in the Italian Bistro? That was a very visual scene."

[I don't think so, but there were nevertheless some great visual moments that manage to equal the book's "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."]

"The BBC was also operating on a shoestring budget, I mean look at portions of Dr. Who or Blake’s 7."

[The one thing I rather liked about the BBC version was the theme music, which was also played briefly in the movie.]

         So, I would have to say my most favorite thing to read is the Sports Section of The Baltimore Sun (or any newspaper for that matter). I have grown up watching sports, playing sports, going to sporting events, so I like to keep tabs on my favorite teams. In high school, I loved reading through the newspaper because me, my sister, and my brother were all great athletes, and it was almost guaranteed that one of us would have our name in the newspaper that day. But besides that, I just like to know what's going on in the sporting world. Who is getting traded to another team, who won the game, and other stuff like that.

         My next favorite thing to read would probably have to be novels. I am a huge Dan Brown fan, and I have read almost every book he has written. Unfortunately, since I am an English major I constantly have other books to read, so during the school year I don't really get the chance to read many other novels. But during the summer I can go through three or four books because I'll just sit outside at the beach house and read all day.

         Lastly, I guess I would have to say that I enjoy reading various things online. For the most part, I like going onto Facebook and reading my friends profiles because I most of my friends go to school far away, so I like to keep tabs about how they are doing and stuff like that. I also enjoy visiting various websites about music artists I like because there is always interesting news about them that I like to know about.

         Other than that, I guess the only other reading I do is the back of my shampoo bottle in the shower!

         I like reading lyrics because, as a musician, I write my own. I like to compare/contrast and get ideas from others. I also like to analyze lyrics to see if I can figure out the true meaning behind what the artist is really trying to say. Not all lyrics are straight forward and fluffy like those of most pop artists today such as ms. Spears-Federline or Jesse McCartney (even though he's the cutest thing since Teletubbies). Third Eye Blind or Dave Matthews band, for example, present the listener with lyrics that, at first listen/glance, don't make even the slightest bit of sense. Once you read through the lyrics while listening to the music in the song, the meaning seems to seep through the spaces b/w the words overlying the melodies. It’s hard to explain. But if you do as I do, you know what I know.

         Ahh Nick Sparks. How I love thee. Let me count the ways. Well, I think I’ll refrain from that at the moment, but I really am enamored with his writing style. I usually don't read novels for pleasure (hence why I am on the Communications and Technology track as opposed to the Literature track), but Nick Sparks speaks to me in a way that I can relate immediately, or at least dream of. Though many view Mr. Sparks as the cheesemeister of all novelists, I see him as more of a romantic dreamer with a happy ending planned for everything/everyone he encounters in his life. His stories speak to me as such because he is able to resonate what I think are personal issues/hopes/dreams with his intended audience/reader. Though all of his novels incorporate the 'happy ending' scenario somehow, he's not corny about it. Yes, the happy ending is inevitably present but usually not in the way the reader would expect. There’s never that bittersweet after-taste from a "happily ever after" effect.

         Biographies spark my interest because I’ve always had a need/want to know people. I’m all about getting to know the individual and what makes him/her tick. These texts may come in the form of a novel or in as something as simple as a band biography posted on their official website. I’m intrigued by where people come from. I want to know their 'story.' if you put a wall up around your heart, I’m gonna knock it down. If you run away from your problems, I’m gonna catch up to you and make you face them. It’s just part of who I am. Even though I can't necessarily have a direct effect on those whose bios I read, I can still catch a glimpse into their lives, and maybe even their souls, for just a little while.

A response to B. Bauhaus' "Lyrics, Sparks, and Bios" by P.C. Paul
So you’re a non-fiction reader. Not surprising as this would be yet another reason why you’re in the TC track. I think of it as being a realist and fact is much stranger than fiction. Biographies are especially interesting if you want to know how successful people have positioned themselves to make the grade. I most cases it was not an easy upward climb but in most cases we find that they were extremely focused. They had a goal laid out and single-mindedly worked towards that goal. I think you can learn a great deal from these biographies. Some I read were Iacocca, Delorean, JFK, Gorbechev, and Princess Diana.... Princess Diana, where does she come from? Well if there was any famous woman that I was in love with it was her. I can’t stand celebrities but for me she was different. She was close enough in age I could relate, a broken heart, I could relate, all she wanted was to be loved and I could sympathize with that sediment. For that she paid the ultimate price. That was a really weird night. I was doing some work while attending Drexel one eye on the computer and one eye on the TV. When the time of her death was finally determined I looked at my watch to find it was stopped precisely at the exact time she died. This was real weird because when my best friend died in a motorcycle accident. The kitchen wall clock was permanently stopped at the precise time he was pronounced dead. Yes I do believe that they pass through and effect physical things in order to say goodbye.

         I just finish reading the book of the 100 Greatest Love Poems. I am such a sucker for sappy love poems. I have read that book so many times, and each time I am drawn to a new one. I like to read love poems because they tell these overly exaggerated stories about some profound love that they have or wish they had. They inspire me to write my own sentimental poems about past love experiences. My favorites are Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee” and “To a Stranger” by Walt Whitman. I am a real sensitive person, so when I am reading these poems nine times out of ten, I will be in tears. I gravitate towards love poetry because I guess I aspire to have the intense emotions/dreams for someone one day.

         Lastly, I LOVE to read song lyrics to classic love songs. I am so embarrassed because I am the typical gushy female, but I have a collection of love songs from Janet Jackson, Al Green*, Etta James, Luther Vandross, Heatwave and etc.... Classic love songs have so much meaning to them oppose to what is playing today. When I am reading the lyrics, I feel a part of the song and it’s amazing how I become so moved by the words. I feel like a cheeseball for admitting the things I like to read. Hopefully, I’m not that bad.

         The other thing I read is self-help books. I have been through a lot of different magnitudes of traumas over the past three years and I read self-help books and books written by people who have gone through depression/anxiety among other things. It's good to know that others have gone through it all and to hear their advice and stories.

         I agree with Crystal that another one of my favorite things to read is AIM profiles and away messages. I get some sort of pleasure from knowing exactly what my friends are doing...along with people who I have their screen names but who probably don't even know me. Kinda creepy! haha.

         So novels, self-help, and AIM get me through the day. And when I'm headed to bed, I read more of my novel!

2) I do read the calorie in take in packages these days, I have been hearing stories of various kinds, and I don’t eat pork, sooo I am always looking at packages that don’t have it in there. For a very long time I use to get this frozen food that had pork in it, I never read the front or back cover of the package. Now that I read it so much it has be come a habit for me and something I enjoy now.

2.) Pen Pal Letters--I have several pen pals from all over the world that I exchange emails with. I get emails all the time from all of my pen pals and I read them as soon as I have a chance. The letters are usually very long and require a good half-hour to read and respond to. I am actually on a website called Pen Pals Now that allows people to post a little profile to advertise themselves and give some information about the types of people they would like to have a correspondence with. Every once in a while, I get a new pen pal emailing me and that’s great. Sometimes it’s hard to get back to every person in a quick fashion, but I do my best.

3.) Wikipedia- Recently, I have become a very frequent visitor to Wikipedia. I have been using the site for research in my classes, but also to research things that I am interested in. I think the site offers a good array of information and sometimes it may be inaccurate, but most of the time, it seems legit. I like to think of things that I want to find out a little more about and look it up to see what I find. I often find more interesting things to look up while reading the pages, and it is also interesting to go back and look at the history to see what changes have been made to the site over time.

         So what do I like to read? Anything and everything...but here are my favorite things.

         Reading novels is my favorite thing to do. More specifically, African American fiction novels. Why? For the most part they seem to keep my interest. It might be because I can relate to the characters for the most part. Or it actually might be that I am interested in the person because they are so different from me.

         Another of my favorite readings is the Comics section of the Washington Post. I love the Washington Post sections to begin with, but the comic strips always have had my heart. Although they are not always funny or as witty as I would like. The story lines and build up sometimes intrigue me. My favorite one is Marvin. I find him the funniest because he's a baby...that talks to a dog. Not only does it cross the lines of reality, it also holds some wit that is best displayed by a dog and a baby.

         I don't really have a third favorite reading, but something that I read the most is the CD inserts. I guess I read them because I like to know who does what in the creation process of the CD. Also, sometimes, there are inserts that include the words to the artist’s songs. It makes it easier for me to sing along at the top of my lungs instead of just making up words and noises.

Personal…
I like to be able to relate to the characters that I read about. When one writes about their own life, often times the events that occur in the novel mimic those that occur in my life. There is something strangely comforting about having shared experiences with a complete stranger/character. In this way, my world fits into a larger one.

         This genre also allows me to live vicariously through others experiences. While reading, I can “walk in someone else’s shoes.” Therefore, I am able to learn about historical events, people, races, and ways of living and thinking that I have never before been exposed to. The books I have read in my “Race and Ethnicity in US Literature” have exposed me to the diversity I lack in my daily life. I feel as though I am becoming a well-rounded person through my exposure to these novels in the genre of creative non-fiction. (As cheesy as it sounds... it’s true.)

References history…
Many novels of this genre mix history with fiction. In this way, historical events are presented as a narrative, a personal account. It makes for an interesting read. Though the novels fail to present history in the non-biased context in which it tends to be presented, it none the less serves to educate. With a human face/ story intermixed with history, history doesn’t seem like abstract dates and past lives, but a definite mark of human life, stories. It is someone’s personal history with the larger historical events shaping the stage in which it is enacted.

Addresses larger political or moral themes…
I am very passionate about politics, too passionate to be in the field. But I sure do love reading about it. In the same way that history is referenced/molded into the novel, politics are too. Since I don’t have the balls to stand up, protest, effect the changes that I believe in, it’s nice to read about people who do.

         Creative non-fiction reflects life- everyday people, and their struggles, happiness, etc. It is a very human genre that is based in reality, and I love realism--to a point…

My next favorite…. Feature Stories
I was recently introduced to this style of writing and I absolutely love it. Writers cloak their politics, prejudices, passions, dislikes, and even loathing in humorous sketches spun off of daily news. I love nothing more than a good laugh especially one that is borne from nuance, intelligent humor. It makes my heart go pity-pat.

         P.S. If could marry "The Onion" I would!

These three divisions would be:

1. Instructional books on writing and poetry
2. Poetry
3. The Novel

The Breakdown Including Explanation

1. Instructional books on writing and poetry- I find this group the most pleasurable because it helps give me a direction to follow with my own writing.

   Examples:

   • Strunk and White’s The Element of Style
   • Mark Strand’s The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
   • Hans Richter’s Dada: Art and Anti-Art (World of Art)

   
   I like to learn new forms, or learn a form well enough to change it for my own purposes. I also like reading autobiographies of other artist’s so I can “see” how they have/are approaching similar problems as I do, such as breaking away from a set style or content. I have read a biography on topography poet e. e. cummings, which was one of the most influential. I have also read the biographies of Frida Kahlo, William Faulkner, and Bob Dylan. Even though I am not presently a songwriter or painter, for me the creative process can be articulated across medium lines so I can apply their techniques to my own writing. Reading philosophy also helps with my prose writing because it when infused with a character’s disposition, it provides a legitimate and believable theme. For this I like Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard.

2. Poetry- reading poetry serves two purposes for me. First, I find it very insightful and viscerally pleasing. It allows me to step back and reflect on the smaller and often neglected aspects of life. On a technical level, I also like to read other’s poetry in order for me to learn more about style, topography, diction, language and dialect.

   Examples:

   • e. e. cummings
   • T.S. Elliot
   • Anne Sexton
   • Sylvia Plath
   • John Berryman
   • Allen Ginsburg
   • Lawrence Ferlinghetti
   • W.S. Merwin
   • William Carlos Williams
   • Elizabeth Bishop
   • Robert Lowell
   • W.D. Snodgrass
   • Sharon Olds
   • Langston Hughes
   • Dylan Thomas
   • Billy Collins

   
   

   In Short, I enjoy and am influenced by many poets but e.e. cummings and Anne Sexton are probable at the forefront. Cummings did not only break language down to reconstruct pace and timing but he did so will evoking the most tender of lines.

   An example can be seen in his poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town”

   “stars rain sun moon
   (and only the snow can begin to explain
   how children are apt to forget to remember
   with up so floating many bells down)

   one day anyone died i guess
   (and noone stooped to kiss his face)
   busy folk buried them side by side
   little by little and was by was

   all by all and deep by deep
   and more by more they dream their sleep”

   Anne Sexton, even more than her contemporary Plath, gave me as a teen a portal to the language of a certain bred of women who allowed themselves voice to articulate feminine ennui. He dealt heaving in the sexuality women possess but some times do not want to own.

   A good example can be found in “The Breast”

   “Now I am your mother, your daughter, your brand new thing -- a snail, a nest.
   I am alive when your fingers are.
   

   I wear silk -- the cover to uncover --
   because silk is what I want you to think of.
   But I dislike the cloth. It is too stern.

   So tell me anything but track me like a climber
   for here is the eye, here is the jewel,
   here is the excitement the nipple learns.

   I am unbalanced -- but I am not mad with snow.
   I am mad the way young girls are mad,
   with an offering, an offering...

   I burn the way money burns.”

   3.) The Novel- I read novels because a lot can be achieved in terms of theme and character developments. Novels do the same work as poetry does in terms of being form pleasure and productivity. My favorite short story writer is Raymond Carver because he treats the blue collared middle class with an acute eye and uncompromising honesty. As for longer prose, my favorite novelist is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His use of magic realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude is amazing but Love in the Time of Cholera, was my favorite. I like his jovial treatment of the melancholy heart. Other novelists I like are Harlem Renaissance writer James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, Herman Hesse, Brent Easton Ellis, Mark Twain, James Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence.

         I also read on the internet a lot. I didn't really think of this as "reading" before this post, but it does make sense. My favorite site, by far, is Wikipedia . This site is a collaborative encyclopedia that anyone can add to. This unique feature causes most professors to find it unreliable, but at the same time it makes it a great resource on nearly every subject. I am a huge fan of the TV show "Lost" and there is actually a sub-encyclopedia called "LostPedia" that contains tons of information from the show. I also like to look up movies, as there is usually a comprehensive discussion of plot and characters, so I can decided if it is worth my time to pay to see them. I also use "Yahoo!" (games, movies, music) for fun and I like to read my friends blogs at "LiveJournal" and Xanga.

         While message boards are technically part of the website category, I think I should separate them because they are kind of different from a regular website, as they are interactive. I really like message boards, particularly reading them, for various interests of mine, including (once again) "Lost," Harry Potter, and a variety of video games I am interested in. I spend most of my time "lurking," or just reading posts, on the message boards, but I do contribute every once in a while. I like to go to these message boards in particular because it's interesting to read other people's theories on what they think is going to happen or what is going on in the various plots of the media listed above. I really only like to use message boards for two reasons: to read theories on shows/books that have an element of mystery or suspense; and to find out information about games/book that haven't been released yet. For instance, even though I am obsessed with the show "The Office," I don't really care for the message boards because there is no unsolved mysteries or suspense that I want to read more about (other than if Pam and Jim are ever going to get together...).

A response to K. 's "Love to Read" by P.C. Paul
Zajdel said, "My favorite genres are science fiction, fantasy, and classical literature. I like to read science fiction and fantasy novels purely for entertainment and escape. Some of my favorite books in these genres are Dune, Ender's Game, Harry Potter, and Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell."

[I enjoy reading science fiction from time to time but I really can’t find anything good. One book I read back in maybe 93’ called Mona Lisa Overdrive (similar to The Matrix but written long before) was receiving powerful reviews but when I read it I thought it was the worst written crap. It was declared science fiction I found the book to be fantasy. The technology and science was happening magically without explanation as to why. There was no applied science. Dune I waded and plodded through unimpressed. I read Spock’s World and found that a little interesting because we were shown more of his world. The plot was lame, I think it was a murder mystery. Isaac Asimov I found to be an excellent writer. His Foundation Trilogy had a solid grounding in psychology and a unique plot. I also found his short stories and essays on robots to be quite good. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings kept me riveted and I have never seen the movies. Robin Cook I also found to be quite good. Most science fiction takes on a militaristic position, which just annoys me.]

Zajdel continued, "I like to read literature as well, but because these books usually teach a lesson or provide some social commentary, which to me can sometimes be quite pleasurable to read. Ayn Rand is my favorite author, and I love all her books. Some other books I like in this genre are Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Great Expectations."

[Yes I also enjoy literature with a social commentary. Frankenstein is fabulous because it’s timeless. The social commentary seems to span more than generations. Jane Eyre I haven’t read but it is waiting on my self to be read. As far as Charles Dickens there other novels he wrote that are much darker and more fascinating,]

"I also read on the internet a lot. I didn't really think of this as 'reading' before this post, but it does make sense. My favorite site, by far, is Wikipedia. This site is a collaborative encyclopedia that anyone can add to. This unique feature causes most professors to find it unreliable, but at the same time it makes it a great resource on nearly every subject," said Zajdel.

[The Wiki does have reliability problems but I find The Wiki a good entry point on many subjects. For me I find the Wiki helpful in getting up to speed quickly on a topic and also ideas of where else to search especially things I am not familiar with.]

"While message boards are technically part of the website category, I think I should separate them because they are kind of different from a regular website, as they are interactive. I really like message boards, particularly reading them, for various interests of mine, including (once again) 'Lost,' Harry Potter, and a variety of video games I am interested in. I spend most of my time 'lurking,' or just reading posts, on the message boards, but I do contribute every once in a while. I like to go to these message boards in particular because it's interesting to read other people's theories on what they think is going to happen or what is going on in the various plots of the media listed above. I really only like to use message boards for two reasons: to read theories on shows/books that have an element of mystery or suspense; and to find out information about games/book that haven't been released yet. For instance, even though I am obsessed with the show 'The Office,' I don't really care for the message boards because there is no unsolved mysteries or suspense that I want to read more about (other than if Pam and Jim are ever going to get together...), Zajdel said."

[Message boards for me are a real sore subject. I found myself "living" for message boards until I disconnected from them completely. I found myself using them as a social tool and not living enough of "real life." I am not saying that message boards are a bad thing because they do serve a useful purpose. As with any tool or technology, when not used properly or abused therein lies the problem. The problem is not the tool but the user of the tool and as with anything not used in moderation the tool just becomes a headache for the user.]

         I'm planning to do a research assignment about Wikipedia. Like many students, I found out about Wikipedia gradually over the last few years. There is certainly a backlash against it from teachers. One of my professors quoted the opinion of one of the library staff, who judged the content of Wikipedia as "unscholarly." I am planning to interview that staff member soon, but it was clear from the professor's tone that she considers a site deemed unscholarly by library staff to be of questionable value to students.

         It's true that students need to be informed about Wikipedia's huge capacity for error. One of my tutees at the writing center had used a Wikipedia article as an outside source, and I discovered that he was completely unaware of how that site worked, and that he assumed it could be quoted as casually as a journal article. I explained to him how anyone can change the articles at any time, that I could go right now and alter the plant article to say, "Plants are little green men secretly plotting to take over earth." The student was very surprised. But I was quick to explain that Wikipedia could still be a valuable resource if you made sure to corroborate the information, and I told him to pay attention to the links at the end of articles, which usually pointed to useful sites. Of course there is a lot of vandalism of Wikipedia articles, largely because some people find it so tempting. Matt mentioned how the picture of Santa Claus was replaced by a picture of Hitler. (Personally, I think it would have been funnier the other way around, to put a picture of Santa in the Hitler article.) Some of the alterations are not so funny, however. People have used Wikipedia to slander public figures. The amazing thing is, even though the site has a large capacity for error, I don't think that means it has a great tendency to error. From what I have seen from reading articles on topics I know a lot about, it tends to be fairly accurate. There is simply too much information, and too many people guarding it, for the vandals to overwhelm the site.

         Nature did a recent study of Wikipedia's scientific articles, and discovered that they are less accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica's articles, but not by much--Wikipedia articles averaged four errors per article, whereas EB averaged three. Now, that doesn't exactly speak very well for either source. But it suggests that Wikipedia is of far higher quality than the critics have suggested.

         But Wikipedia has a unique characteristic that few people have pointed out. It is probably the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever written. The extent of the topics is just mind-boggling. You will find articles on just about every obscure musical artist you can think of, as well as lengthy articles on popular movies and books, many containing extensive discussions about characters, plot points, controversies, and so on. There's an article on Enoch Pratt Free Library, as well as on UMBC, and I'm sure there is similarly local information to just about every major city in the world. Let's face it: it's more than an encyclopedia, it's a library.

         One time, recently, I was curious about what was the difference between pastrami and corned beef. I found the answer on Wikipedia, as I knew I would. Britannica had no mention of it. I was doing a speech on the flag-burning controversy, and the Wikipedia article proved very helpful--it featured the exact quote of Congress's justification for the amendment. Of course I was careful to corroborate that the quote was accurate. But it would have been harder for me to find the original source for the quote if not for Wikipedia.

         To be sure, there are students who will misuse Wikipedia and accept everything in it as gospel. But before Wikipedia existed, those same students would have gotten their information from "Bob's webpage." And before the Internet existed, they would have still been careless about their sources. The fact is, one of the jobs of being an informed citizen is not believing everything you read. Wikipedia is very open about how it works and its capacity for error--it is not their fault if some people use it without caution.

A response to N. Barsky's "Wikipedia" by B. Mechairia
Wikipedia is a monster and we must ban it!

         but seriously...I think Wikipedia is entertaining at best.

         I am always in search of great scholarly websites and I recently stumbled on "Google Scholar." This might be old but its new to me ;-)

         The google scholar search engine only returns results from what it deems are scholarly sources--I tried and found it pretty useful. Anyone who wants to check it out visit: scholar.google.com .

Cya guys,
Bilal

A response to N. Barsky's "Wikipedia" by P.C. Paul
Google Scholar is relatively new. I was introduced to it by a peer while performing class activities in Dr. Carpenter's ENGL 488 Visual Literacy fall 2005.

         I found this helpful sometimes. I used the site as a secondary tool. I would perform s few searches in here find maybe what I wanted and then swing over to the UMBC Library site to see if we had it. Too many times I found sites refereeing to sites in Google and had to question the validity of the source. It would find student papers at times. The indicator was the web addy, the length of the paper (typically shorter than a journal article), unpublished (nothing mentioning it was from a journal, or subjected to scholarly review. The information on these was not helpful but sometimes the sources were. One STILL has to be careful with "googling" even if it says "Scholarly."

         Another type of novel that I really get into is the mystery/thriller types. I really loved The Da Vinci Code and any of the mysteries by Barbara Michaels. I understand that these types of novels are formula fiction but I really do not have the time or energy to read anything else because of school. I like these novels because they are fast reads and they keep me engaged.

         The only other thing that I read for pleasure is the magazine Cosmopolitan. This is really corny and girly but somehow I got addicted. What I like about Cosmo is that they too do not hold much back from the reader. I also really like the layout of the magazine itself, it is very accessible. I have tried to get into other magazines but I find that I can't because I don't interact with the layout well.

         Overall, I really love to read, I always have. The problem is finding the time to read for pleasure while in school. Because there isn't much free time, I am forced to read things that I can get through quickly or be able to put down and pick right back up in a couple of days. So while I do love reading certain classics, I really do not have the time to go as in depth with them during school so I chose not to. Instead, I wait until the summer or winter break to read meatier novels.

         I really love science fiction novels that take place in alternate universes. Some of my favorite authors are Terry Prachet and Orson Scott Card. My life is boring enough most of the time, so I don’t really like realistic fiction or non-fiction. I’d rather read about people’s lives that are more interesting, which is why I tend to lean towards the supernatural. Harry Potter also works for me, I wrote my college essay on it and got a full ride scholarship. Lol. If I have nothing else to do I can finish the 700 page novel in a few hours when it comes out, and I’m usually the first in line at Barnes and Noble at 9 p.m. to get the new one that comes out at midnight.

         I’ve had an addiction to fan-fiction on the Internet since middle school, I would guess. It started with Harry Potter fan-fiction, where authors take the characters and settings form other books and write their owns stories. I wrote a few of my own in middle school and posted them online, but I haven’t done that in awhile (I’m not a big fan of my writing). I like reading anime too, because most of it falls into the science fiction category (like Dragon Ball Z).

         I’m also a sucker for fashion magazines even though I don’t really have interesting fashion sense. I like magazines like Seventeen that have inspirational stories or do-it-yourself stuff, even though I never wind up doing any of it. I like making collages with the pictures and letters. I also think Cosmo is hilarious even though the information in it doesn’t do me any good. ;-)