Well, I survived. (*Mike waits quietly for the applause*)
So a huge thank you for the three people (two of whom I've never even met) who hoped I didn't die. To the rest of you... um, sorry? What does it say about your sad little life when people you know won't miss you?
Sorry, I'm feeling punchy. I was marking my latest pile of essays yesterday afternoon and caught plagarist student at Prov this week. Usually I get really mad, then depressed, then annoyed, but I didn't this time. I usually look at a student trying to pass someone else's work as her own as a personal insult, like she thinks I'm too stupid to spot it. This year, after catching two students at two different schools and being told the same crappy excuse, I told my class many, MANY times a) what constitutes plagarism and b) that if they did decide to try and plagarize their I would show NO MERCY. And I didn't.
I don't even feel the standard stomach knots that typically accompany cases of plagarism. Must be getting desensitized.
We were looking at Swift's "A Modest Proposal" today in class. As a way of further illustrating satire, I decided to show clips of arguably the best working satirist we have, Sacha Baron Cohen. I used the clip from Da Ali G Show where Borat sings a country song in a bar in Texas. The song, which he says is about the troubles in his country, turns into a horrible anti-semitic song about throwing Jews down the well. We watched as Cohen (an observant Jew himself) lead the bar patrons in the chorus "Throw the Jew down the well, and then my country can be free." Oblivious to the fact that they are the butt of Cohen's satire, the patrons clap and smile and sing along.
12 comments:
1) I think it would suck if you died, I'm liking class. If not for that class I would have hated on T.S Eliot for the rest of my life just because he is popular. Now me and him are in the middle of a love affair.
2) Plagerizing, what else do you expect at Prov? Heathen College.
3) Have you seen Borat the movie? I saw it last night. To be honest I was dissapointed, there were funny parts and all but I dunno... too much hype I guess.
oh t.s., when will he learn?
That’s kinda funny mike – I usually err on the side of....ego.
In a ‘well, obviously they all love me – how could they not?’ sort of way.
I just don’t understand plagiarists. Why? What would make you think it was a good idea?
I still haven’t seen Borat. It makes me sad. :( :( :( I wanna join in the fun...
I haven't seen the movie yet either. I haven't been to the movies in... ages. I have seen a lot of Da Ali G show and thanks to youtube, a number of other things.
Yeah, I’ve had little to no media input lately....although I did see the new Bond. But other than that – nada.
we should get a tv in our apartment.
ha, a modest proposal...isn't that about eating babies or something. i remember it being really funny though...
It is about eating babies. And it is pretty funny.
I think Ali G is funnier than Borat; Borat seems rather crude to me as satires go. But when Swift published "A Modest Proposal" there were people who thought he wasn't kidding, too.
Things being as they are -- and have been for a very long time (about 1900 years) -- remember Juvenal's remark: Difficile est saturam non scribere. It is hard not to write satire. Oh, and is Rebs the only one here who can spell? Aaaughh!
And doesn't everybody love the early T.S. Eliot? I steal from him (sorry -- I make poetic allusions) all the time. The Crash Test Dummies cite the coffee spoons lines from Prufrock, Patricia Rozema called her movie "I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing," Helena Bonham Carter is in an Australian flick called "Till Human Voices Wake Us," and of course Eliot himself is full of citations -- The Waste Land shouldn't be read without some sort of key.
Shantih Shantih Shantih ("Shantih" turns out to be the name of the dead daughter of the geneticist who starts things rolling on the new TV series "Heroes"; everything is connected, as I'm sure someone must have sad before).
I love that people thought (some people still argue) Swift was advocating eating year old Irish children. I tried to argue that with satire like Swift and Borat if you don't get the joke, you become part of the satire - like the bar patrons singing along to the song.
I run hot/cold on Ali G. Some of the stuff with him is brilliant - like asking the head of CIA if he was worried about terrorists hijacking a train and driving it into the White House. Ali G Indahouse, however, was pretty lackluster.
Eliot is my friend. Hardly a week goes by when I don't think of a line of Prufrock and sigh.
And apparently I have to start watching Heroes. Everyone's been telling me about this show.
That's the vibe I'm getting, too... I have no access though, and not enough time to make it worthwhile seeking my own means
*rebs blushes*
Tom will tell you that I’m actually not the greatest speller. If you ever happen to play speed Scrabble (a.k.a. ‘Take Two’) with me, double check all my words after I’ve yelled ‘done!’ and chances are I’ll have mucked something up royally. But maybe I just can’t hack the pressure.
However, Tom’s got to admit that unlike him, I did know how to spell “sovereign”. I’ll cherish that moment forever...
Longest comment ever.
My sisters watch Heroes and enjoy it. I, unfortunately, only caught part of an episode, so I was a little lost. Someone should really give me a TV. I’m sick of my counter-culture life.
In the defense of stupid people everywhere (and not a representative of one of them, of course . . .), Swift's arguments are convincing, and some people will honestly take everything they read for fact, without taking into account artistic voice or the unreliable narrator. These are the same people who think that the protagonist in any given novel is the same as the author.
But the people who believe Swift was in earnest are probably only covering for their own deep-rooted cannibalistic urges.
Oh. That didn't turn out to be a defense of stupid people after all. My bad.
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