You know the drill - you are bored, and reading articles online, and one click leads to another, and to another, until you end up at a website that features a Spider-Man action figure commenting on the names of every crayon color from the Crayola crayon box. Well, here is the latest roundup of interesting websites I have stumbled upon in similar fashion:
Cynical-C Blog, which features the funniest one-star Amazon reviews of classic movies, music, and literature. I particularly like one reviewer's critique of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which he contrasts it with his favorite movie, Spaceballs (a film which, in his opinion, "knows where to draw the line" when it comes to humor), and claims he would probably kill himself if forced to watch the Monty Python flick again.
the dullest blog in the world is a hilarious testament to the ridiculousness of blogging about the minutiae of one's daily existence.
Chick Flicks in 140 Characters or Less. Surprisingly accurate. For example: "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Boy plays trick on girl. Girl plays trick on boy. Girl loses boy, gets boy back. Girl and boy make 'Fool's Gold.' We all die a little inside."
That's all for now. I will be back to grading papers next week and won't have as much time to devote to online meandering. Stumbled upon any other interesting sites lately? Feel free to share.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
And Now For Something Completely Different ...
I hate to admit it, but my Great Western Literary Experiment has come to a standstill. I got as far as reading the beginning of the Oresteia, and after weeks of making little to no progress on the book, I began to reevaluate my literary goals. I realized I lacked the discipline and ability to concentrate needed to proceed with this endeavor; therefore, I put ancient writings aside in favor of the kind of literature I love and never tire of - 20th-Century Southern writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and William Faulkner.
That's not to say I didn't learn a great deal from my evenings spent with the ancients, Homer in particular. Who would have thought that Western Literature as we know it began with an action movie? I am referring to The Iliad - jam-packed full of gory battle scenes and rippling heroes who, in true action-movie fashion, never seem to get hurt while scores of extras bite the dust all around them, The Iliad demonstrates that people have always enjoyed this form of entertainment (even in epic-poem format). At what point, then, did the stuff of action movies become divorced from what we consider "literature" or "art?" I find it fascinating that in the ancient world, the battlefield and the poet are intimately entwined.
Maybe I'll pick up where I left off at some point. For now, I need simply to get back into the habit of reading, and I am turning to the familiar voices of the American South for some much-needed motivation.
That's not to say I didn't learn a great deal from my evenings spent with the ancients, Homer in particular. Who would have thought that Western Literature as we know it began with an action movie? I am referring to The Iliad - jam-packed full of gory battle scenes and rippling heroes who, in true action-movie fashion, never seem to get hurt while scores of extras bite the dust all around them, The Iliad demonstrates that people have always enjoyed this form of entertainment (even in epic-poem format). At what point, then, did the stuff of action movies become divorced from what we consider "literature" or "art?" I find it fascinating that in the ancient world, the battlefield and the poet are intimately entwined.
Maybe I'll pick up where I left off at some point. For now, I need simply to get back into the habit of reading, and I am turning to the familiar voices of the American South for some much-needed motivation.
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