Bust Your Windows

Lea Michele can sing, but I still think this was the best moment in Glee so far.



Amber Riley can belt it out. I can't wait until the soundtrack comes out in November or whenever it is supposed to come out.

Girls on the Run

Dearest, we had waited for this star,
the marriage couldn’t take place without it. A louse
drags its lonely way up to the end of a porcupine quill, expires,
and can we have heard anything? I mean the paced breathing just outdoors,
and then inside, it’s just squalid and quiet,
nothing more, I have a bowl of cherry soup.

These halls, when the rush of spring is echoing, far ahead,
collapse into tendrils, their decor foreseen
since the dawn of history. One can walk across them, and time suddenly
seems funny, stops, is dead, or mute. And prisoners come begging
for a primrose, or a shaft of sunlight, and the all-seeing sees them
and averts his gaze until tomorrow. Thus, our doom, ringing with half-realized
fantasies, is a promise of a new beginning on another continent.
Only, we must get out of here. A man stands by a cactus, counting
the flecks of rage as they pass by and you are in another suit,
abashed, a dapper salesman today. And the volley of the shooting gallery
vies with the welter of jarred complacencies, multiple over time,
if time wishes: “Lacrimoso, our sport is behind us!
Lacrimoso, we can’t get anything done!
Lacrimoso, the bear has gone after the honey!
Lacrimoso, the honey drips incessantly
from the bough of a tree.”

Worse, it was traditional to feel this way.


Ashberry, John. Girls on the Run. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. 1999. 10-11

The Crossings

Do You Believe In Me?

A most amazing public speaker. That is exactly how I would describe Dalton Sherman. You can see rhetoric at work in the speech of this Dallas public school student. I was so motivated by this video that I blurted out at the beginning of class to my unknowing, much-too-sleepy, and completely shocked comp class, "I believe in you!"



It was so weird because Sherman talks about something so simple and yet so complex. We sort of got into this last week when talking about feminist teaching and the de-centering of authority in the classroom. Are there ways to avoid it? One pessimist in class just kept harping on the fact that we still have to turn in grades at the end of the semester/year and that no matter what this is an authoritarian position we will never be able to escape. (She even decried my methods of my equal power as silly. As if letting students grade themselves will allow them to learn anything. Well, wouldn't they be able to learn how to evaluate others?)

A September Playlist

Some music for your enjoyment!


1. “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire



2. “Wanted” by Holly Brook
3. “Bite Your Tongue” by Duncan Sheik
4. “Tulsa” by Rufus Wainwright



5. “September Baby” by Joseph Arthur
6. “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and the Papas
7. “Dear Prudence” by The Beatles [I know this isn't the Beatles's version, but this is my favorite song in the movie. I couldn't hold back from putting on here.]



8. “Fallen” by Sarah McLachlan
9. “Little Details” by Mason Jennings
10. “We Don’t Need Another Hero” by Tina Turner
11. “Pavlov’s Bell” by Aimee Mann

1 + 1 = 2

When you like one thing and you add that another thing that you like, you can sometimes get something that is twice as great.

Sookie? (Creepy...)

I can't believe tonight is the last episode of True Blood for this season. It seems to have gone by so fast. I can't wait until next season already. Here's a creepy video I found on YouTube for you to enjoy.

For All You Fans Out There

So, I kept seeing the Ponyo movie times when checking for other, better movies to see. When surfing the net the other day, I found this excellent video from Funny Or Die. Enjoy!

Ponyo is on a Boat - watch more funny videos

And the Oscar Goes To

When people think about all of the work that goes into movies, they rarely think about all of the pre-production research. For the most part, I would hypothesize that everyone thinks it’s all about the writers, actors, producers, and directors. Of course nods are given to production and design at Oscar time. Well, Harry Potter has yet to win an Oscar, and I do wonder if they are going to hold out and do what they did for the LOTR series, which is give awards to the last film rather than the earlier ones because it is a series-franchise-thing. I’ve been thinking about this because I came across these awesome links/images/documents that I want to share today. I’m officially casting in my ballot for Nicholas Saunders and the design team behind Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.










Thanks to the Creative Review, which I think is an online magazine of some kind, I was able to view the images created by Saunders and others concerning the joke shop. Here’s what Saunders says, "I worked in the graphic design department for the film under the watchful gaze of senior graphic artists Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima – and alongside fellow assistant graphic artist Lauren Wakefield," Saunders explains. "It was just the four of us who created packaging for this
particular set but this work here is just the stuff that I personally designed.” […] “I was briefed to work on the Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes originally," Saunders continues. "I was also asked to come up with a number of names for more products (such as Anti Gravity Hats) to adorn the shelves. Then after the product names were approved and cleared I used the names as a base to start the designs. When the boxes were ready they were printed on mass up to 400 then they were placed on boxes of all different shapes and sizes. Then after this stage the set dressers took them to fill three storeys of shop shelves in the shop on the Diagon Alley set.”

The Advent of E-Mail

Jami: Okay, you know at the end in the tower when Dumbledore tells Draco that he once knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Well, before I assumed he was talking about Voldemort because of his speech at the beginning on the first night of school. But that doesn't really make sense rhetorically. I mean, Draco would think Voldemort made the right choices. So maybe this is really obvious and I'm just catching up, but I think he was either talking about himself or Grindewald. Perhaps this doesn't matter at all, but I wanted to share.

Me: I think this is great, and I do think that he was talking about himself rather that Grindewald. He had once made all the wrong choices (in his past with Grindewald which had consequences for his family) before he realized that there was a way out, which is what he would have wanted Draco to know.

All-seeing commentator: AMAZING! Way to use grad student skills.

Sincerely, Jane

Because my last post on Janelle Monae was so popular, I thought I would capitalize on that success and post this video of her performing “Sincerely, Jane” live at the Filmore. I know that Progress’s blog written by Beamish mentioned some stuff about Monae, and one of the comments was about this particular. I compared this song to Pink’s “Dear Mr. President” because of the lyrics and the rhetoric behind the song.



Here are some lyrics for you to consider: (they are not the entire lyrics)


Left the city, my momma she said don't come back home
These kids round' killin each other, they lost they minds, they gone
They quittin' school, making babies and can barely read
Some gone off to their fall, lord have mercy on them
One, two, three, four, your cousins is round' here sellin' dope
While they're daddies, your uncle is walking round' strung out
Babies with babies, and their tears keep burning, while their dreams go down the drain now

Are we really living or just walking dead now?
Or dreaming of a hope riding the wings of angels
The way we live
The way we die
What a tragedy, I'm so terrified
Day dreamers please wake up, we can't sleep no more

Love don't make no sense, ask your neighbor
The winds have changed; it seems they have abandoned us
The truth hurts, and so does yesterday
What good is love if it burns bright, and explodes in flames
(I thought every little thing had love but uhh)

Voice and Exit

“The idea that the mutuality or asymmetry of a relationship can be measured by the relative capacities of the parties to withdraw from it has been developed extensively by Albert O. Hirschman, in two books written many years apart. In his 1970 book entitled Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Hirschman makes a convincing connection between the influence of voice by members within groups or institutions and the feasibility of their exit from them. There is a complex relation, he argues, between voice and exit. On the one hand, if the exit option is readily available, this will ‘tend to atrophy the development of the art of voice.’ Thus, for example, dissatisfied customers who can easily purchase equivalent goods from another firm are unlikely to expend their energies voicing complaints. On the other hand, the nonexistence or low feasibility of the exit option can impede the effectiveness of voice, since the threat of exit, whether explicit or implicit, is an important means of making one’s voice influential.”

Okin, Susan. “Vulnerability in Marriage.” The Feminist Philosophy Reader. Ed. Alison Bailey and Chris Cuomo. New York: McGarw-Hill, 2008. 600-621.

Gin Blossoms

So this was supposed to be me tonight:



However, I am at home reading Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and texting Laura and Jami instead. While seeing the Gin Blossoms would have been money, I think my teachers will be happier with me getting work done today. I managed to read quite a bit.

I figure my skipping out on this concert will be made up with seeing Mat Kearney in October, which I am so excited about!

My Freedom's In A Bind

Body Politic

"Nature is only the raw material of culture, appropriated, preserved, enslaved, exalted, or otherwise made flexible for disposal by culture in the logic of capitalist colonialism. Similarly, sex is only the matter to the act of gender; the productionist logic seems inescapable in traditions of Western binarisms. This analytical and historical narrative logic accounts for my nervousness about the sex/gender distinction in the recent history of feminist theory. Sex is 'resourced' for its re-presentation as gender, which 'we' can control. It has seemed all but impossible to avoid the trap of an appropriationist logic of domination built into the nature/culture binarism and its generative lineage, including the sex/gender distinction" (Haraway 198).

"Is there a connection between this state of mind--the Cold War mentality, the attribution of all our problems to an external enemy--and a form of feminism so focused on male evil and female victimization that it, too, allows for no differences among women, men, places, times, cultures, conditions, classes, movements?" (Rich 221)

"But for many women I knew, the need to begin with the female body--our own---was understood not as applying a Marxist principle to women, but as locating the grounds from which to speak with authority as women. Not to transcend this body, but to reclaim it" (Rich 213).

"Every person is at the center of his world, and circumambient space is differentiated in accordance with the schema of his body. As he moves and turns, so do the regions front-back and right-left around him" (Tuan 41).

Haraway, Donna. "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective." Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 183- 201.

Rich, Adrienne. "Notes Towards a Politics of Location." Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1979-1985. New York: Norton. 210- 231.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. "Body, Personal Relations, and Spatial Values." Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971. 34-50.