“If we just look, inside each of us a thousand rebellions sleep.” -From “Chorus of One” by Richmond, VA’s own Strike Anywhere
A Thousand Rebellions
28Nov08
Filed under: Accountability, Art, Commonplace Books, Music | Leave a Comment
Tags: Accountability, Achievement, Ambition, Art, Books, Chorus of One, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, Life and How to Live It, Music, Strike Anywhere, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
On Becoming Great
28Nov08
Words To Remember Over The Holidays
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Mark Twain
Filed under: Accountability, Achievement, Ambition, Art, Life | Leave a Comment
Tags: Accountability, Achievement, Ambition, Art, Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Drama, Fiction, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Nonfiction, Poetry, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
A bit of reality about Twilight
28Nov08
My thoughts exactly…
http://community.feministing.com/2008/07/misgonmy-in-popular-teen-liter.html
“
Once Edward and Bella get together, Bella is completely dependent upon him. He becomes her entire life. Bella has no friends outside of Edward. The few people she talks to are so few and far between, they hardly count. The closes thing Bella has to a friend outside of Edward is Jacob, but she gives him up once Edward becomes jealous, and forbids their hanging out. After two weeks of being together, Bella decides to give up her life and become a vampire. Pretty bad, huh? And the worst part is, the only reason given for Bella loving Edward is how hot he is. There are seriously over 100 references to Edward’s beauty in the first book alone. I counted.
Now what kind of message is that? A guy is worth everything so long as he’s hot? Never do Bella and Edward have a real conversation where falling in love happens. All we hear from Bella is how insanely gorgeous Edward is. Never once does Bella even spare a thought for any of her other “friends”. And that seems to set a theme for Twilight. That your boyfriend is the most important thing in your life.
Bella is a weak character. In the beginning of the first book, a boy pricks his finger and Bella almost faints at the sight of it so, of course, one of the boys in her class has to take her out. And this is just the first instance of Bella having to be saved by a big strong man. As the book progresses, Bella finds herself in various dangerous situations. She almost gets hit by a truck. Guess who saves her? Edward. Bella goes with her friends on a shopping trip to seem normal, and she separates from her friends and ends up an a back alley with some guys who want to take advantage of her. Does she scream? Call for help? Try to fight for herself? She thinks about it, then remembers she’s a girl so what’s the point? But then Edward swoops in and saves the day! This continues on throughout the whole book. Normally while Bella describes her intense fear, and how she feels like feinting. Typical damsel in distress. This girl is nothing with out her man. In fact, in New Moon, she because some depressed that she can’t even remember what went on in her life for three months when Edward leaves. Real healthy.”
Filed under: Accountability, Art, Commonplace Books, Life | Leave a Comment
Tags: Accountability, Art, Bella, Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Edward Cullen, Feminism, Life, Life and How to Live It, Movies, Mysogyny, Mysogyny in Popular Teen Literature, Students, Teachers, Twilight, Twilight Bad for Girls, Writers, Writing, Writing Community
Photos to Words
26Oct08
From Photos to Words
“The way I understand it, a photographer’s relationship to his medium is responsible for his relationship to the world is responsible for his relationship to his medium.”
—–Garry Winogrand
Filed under: Art, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Editing, The Beautiful Work, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: Accountability, Art, Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Drama, Editing, Fiction, Garry Winogrand, Nonfiction, Photographers, Photography, Poetry, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Community
From Glints of Light
Rescue by Jason Shinder
When the doctor inserts his two fingers
into my mother rectum, the pupils of her eyes
move like blue-fish under the ice in a bucket
before they are carried away.
I am climbing out of a well and offering her some water.
I am picking up her body which weighs
less than her clothes, when the doctor rubs his fingers
against the swollen tissue of her small intestine
like the torn blouse of a lover.
Already the air on her lips is like bread crumbs.
Already the white bones of her skull soften.
Already the moon is sticking out of her left eye.
I am hiding in the right ear of my mother.
I am running like a criminal through the streets of her body
trying to return everything I ever stole.
Filed under: Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, The Beautiful Work | Leave a Comment
Tags: Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Death, Drama, Fiction, Jason Shinder, Life, Life and How to Live It, Nonfiction, Poetry, Poets, Requiem, Rescue by Jason Shinder, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
Hemingway on War
26Oct08
From Weaving Olden Dances
From Ernest Hemingway
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
Filed under: Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, Young Writers | Leave a Comment
Tags: Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Cretive Nonfiction, Drama, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, Life, Life and How to Live It, Poetry, Students, Teachers, Truth, War, Writers, Writing, Writing Community
Howards End and Umbrellas
19Oct08
Howards End
All men are created equal–all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas.–Leonard Bast
Filed under: Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Howards End, Life, Life and How to Live It, Movies, Umbrellas, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
Marriage
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. – Nietzsche
Filed under: Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, Writing Community | 1 Comment
Tags: Books, Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Life, Life and How to Live It, Marriage, Nietzsche, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
Glints of Light and Cat’s Cradle
19Oct08
From Glints of Light
“See the cat? See the cradle?” 2
Again, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle:
Man blinked. “What is the purpose of all this?” he asked politely.
“Everything must have a purpose?” asked God.
“Certainly,” said man.
“Then I leave you to think of one for all this,” said God. And He went away.
Filed under: Commonplace Books, Creative Writing at Longwood, Literature, The Beautiful Work, Writing | Leave a Comment
Tags: Art, Books, Cat's Cradle, Commonplace Books, God, Kurt Vonnegut, Literature, The Beautiful Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Community, Young Writers
Creative Writing at Longwood 