Cool Boulder, yo.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down, letting the days go by, water flowing underground, into the blue again after the money's gone, once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.

I think I'm sitting on something that I have to get somewhere and make it a part of something. That'd be good. A good thing.

Spe Prally

white board. Great job

The Story of a Man who gets what he wants

"Wow! Smells like I'll make a grand discovery this morning!"

Catangular Plane

Um, you know.

It's a big cat. Standing behind a wall.

aaaaaand

he's got a big spoon.

And you try to yank on one of those cool door handles and he'll scoop you and shmoop you.

SCOOP AND SHMOOP!

It's not rocket science, kids. Just read the picture and go back through your clicking cycle. 

Robo-Bullies are the WORST

"You farted! You farted! You farted! You farted! You farted! You farted!"

"Oh! Curse you! I'm already sublimating my shame into creative energies for Art class!"
"Just don't sublimate it into any more farts, NERD!"
"But I can't help it!" *fart-weeps uncontrollably*

Kyle Club

Chairmen: We will now call the first meeting of the Kyle Club in a Cardboard box to order. First on the agenda is--

EVERYONE: AAHGGGGHGHGHH!! WOOAAAHH NOOOOOO! BWAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Some guy: Who told the Ubermensch about our Kyle Club?!

EVERYONE: WAAAAHHHHH!! GOOOOOAOAAAOAOARRHHHH!!!!

EVERYONE: (whispering) aaaaahhhh. ahhhhhhhh! (little bit quieter) aaaahh (quieter) aahhhhhh wwwwwaaahhh (silent screaming mouths open)......

(full volume) AAAAGGHGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Dragons and Hoodies

That's my roommate, Luke (AKA Lukie-Bookie AKA Denz-Gladys AttackBite) doing some crazy hacking. He's probably turning cat gifs into nickels or something. He's a computer genius who lives on chocolate sauce and ramen noodles and wears his hoodie like that to consolidate breathing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and hearing into a single hole from which no light can escape. We're a super team.

I'm in the background as a side-beaked dragon who is all the time repeating things I hear rappers saying on talk shows. I've got outwardly-directed ambition and a yearning for the outside world that Luke fails to understand because of his rich inner-life. Together we combine to form a team like cowboys and indians, godzilla and mothra, Mars and Asteroids, knives and steak knives, power scrapes. We seek to dismantle each and every establishment and, if we so choose, build them up again.

We are the friendly faces of a new age!
We are the talking backwards heads!
Have we spirit and hearts broken are we!

Naming

Mr. Hand's gonna teach you about how pretty everything is LALALALALALA!!! RIGHT?

Moon Time

Louis CK has a great joke about how cellphones make it impossible for us, and kids especially, to cultivate an ability to just be alone. Just be a person doing nothing. 

And I think education and English and arts ideally should be the opposite of a phone. It should help you reach the difficult rewards of being alone and doing nothing. We are really alone.

And I'm not saying that English is about becoming an anti-social person or that it is better than phones and technology and immediate gratification because you can't win that battle and I've probably already lost it myself.

What Louis CK says is that the reward of really experiencing tremendous lonesome sadness is true happiness and joy. I think that's true.

It's a really hard sell though. It's really scary to admit to yourself how alone you can be and it's becoming easier and easier to head off that feeling. But I think it's easy to go the other direction too. To say that everything is hopeless and irreparably awful and stop digging.

 Here's an attempt at a terrible analogy. Just this last December, I rediscovered an all-time favorite game of mine, trying to balance a broom on its end in the palm of your hand. If you've never done it before, it's all the thrill of dancing with all the neck-cramping fun of playing a video game demo in Wal-Mart. Anyway, the fun of it is the constant adjustments you have to make to keep the thing standing up right. You'll never find a spot where you don't have to move to keep the broom balanced. There's no definitive 'answer'. 

from https://normandyloveshumphrey.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/lunch-lunch-lunch-no-tv/

Now, it would be easy to constantly bring up your other hand and steady the broom and it would be even easier to just let the broom fall on the floor and leave it there and proclaim the futility of the exercise all together. The hard thing, the only thing that makes the endeavor worthwhile (to me), is to keep moving and adjusting and focusing and thinking about keeping the broom balanced with one hand or one finger or whatever.

So, what is balancing the broom in that analogy? I think it's true happiness. Or an authentic existence, which isn't always necessarily happy. And, unlike the pointless broom game which doesn't make much, I think art can be a product of that balancing. It can be a reminder or an urging of a difficult process that doesn't accept an easy answer. That

something good comes from the bad, a song is never just sad, there's hope, there's a silver lining.

All English offers to me is a process. A way of constantly creating and recreating a world you truly want to live in. And once you start that process the only thing you can do is keep going and going and going and going.

If you're already completely happy 100% and never lonely for a second, great. You have no need for English or learning. If you're so assured of the futility of existence and the meaninglessness of life then that's also great, you have no need for English or learning. But if you live in a world that has serious problems and you are lonely and unfulfilled for some reason, like me, but you believe that something can be done about it, something that involves your energy and effort and creativity, even if it only brings about a resolution for brief moments, then English and learning can probably help you with that.

Hungry Tabbit

What are your dream characters?

Mine's in the desert. Always has been. There's a raggedy rabbit--skin and bone.

What does he want? 

He--

Why does the worn wooden sign beat against his ribs?

He's hungry, probably. His ceaseless drudging dreading trudge slouches toward the Blob of All Plenty.

The Blob!

Full of terrible joy, rainbow brites, mad daisies, mush balm, hot vinegar wheels, clanky toms, and boom-boom nugrits. You know, dream machines.

Poetry Glowatree

The age-old story of prideful twigs using occult magic to raise their lovers from the dead reimagined as a verse from a Dylan Thomas poem. Don't walk, run to see this delightful family comedy answer all your questions about mortality and stick magic.

Interockstar

When Rivers Cuomo says in the song, 'El Scorcho', "watching Grunge leg drop New Jack through a press table", he's not just talking about professional wrestlers. He's talking about the power of the sound of spoken words. On like a muscular, articulation level. It's a powerful, crunchy, violent line arranged in pairs of gritty words. "watching grunge"- "leg drop"- "New Jack" "press table". No other part of the song even provides context for the literal meaning of this part. So, what? Why do this? To me, it's not just a question of 'catchiness' or something that gets stuck in your head. It's fun because it is actually satisfying to form those syllables in that order. Like saying 'fifty-nine ninety-nine to ninety-nine ninety-nine' quickly or Pete Holmes's 'get some beers, Pierce!" or any poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins or whatever Reggie Watts does. It doesn't just play in your head like something catchy. You get the joy when you make those words with your own mouth. So, you know, that's a great way to pass on information when the speaker gets rewarded for repeating it. Use it for entertainment or mind control. It's a win win.

The little bittles

"I'm scared, daddy!"

"I'm too important to die!"

The Most Likely Explanation

The beat-up burgundy Geo Metro slowed to match pace with the runner. The runner looked down and to the side as the car pulled into view. The winding road cut through a hilly grassy countryside. Rolling down the window, the driver asked, "Excuse me, do you run on this road often?"
"No, not very often."
"You haven't seen a golden retriever around here in the past month have you?"
"No, I have not."
"Well, thanks. Sorry to bother you." The car accelerated.
"No problem."

*******************************************************
As the aged vehicle struggled to climb the steep hill, the driver, a man in his late 50's with a silver bowl cut, a permanent squint, and several missing teeth, reached into his glove compartment. He pulled out a faded black-and-white photograph and gazed into the eyes of the young woman smiling at whoever was behind the camera. His eyes closed tightly as he said, "Don't worry. I haven't forgotten. I'll never forget what he did. And I'll never stop until I find that monster and make him pay."

********************************************************

The grain silo cast a long, ominous shadow across the fields of yellowed grasses in the early January afternoon. Perched atop the silo sat a large, athletic, blonde dog with a wide smiling face. Its eyes like hollow pits gazed with contempt at the champagne-colored valley. The beast's head rose and fell as it barked but neither the top hat, nor monocle, nor over-sized cigar were disturbed. Its angry shouts seemed to say, " Oh Gregory. The game has only just begun." The massive paw mashed down on the glowing red button beside it and the sun was extinguished in a flash.

*********************************************************

From out of the darkness that the runner plunged hopelessly through, nearly sprinting, he heard the distinct sound of villainous dog laughter.

"MWAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA! HUAHUAHUAHUAHUAHOOOOOOOOOO!!"
********************************************************

But seriously, that guy is really worried about his dog, you guys.

What the People Really Want

Your joy means nothing to me. Leave me to smolder like an angry foot steeped in the rotting decay of a stump. I shine like a split bowling ball in the evening sun stuffed with gizzards and insincere Valentines. The candy has been eaten--bitter as the robot that excreted it so many years ago.

HA!

Hamartia Track Club University

Entering 6 events tonight in indoor track meet. Goal: win 'em all!

Virtue: HUBRIS!

1600- 4:57- 1st

55- 8.1 - 7th

200- 29.6 -3rd

800- 2:19- 1st

400- 63- 1st

3200- 11:53- 1st

Man I'm bad at sprinting.

Driving the Future Today!

WORK HARD LIVING OR WORK HARD DYING!

OR GET A STEERING WHEEL AND DRIVE YOURSELF INTO THE BEST-YOU-INTERSTATE-EXPRESS!!

Weird Plant

I think when I worked with kids in the before and after school program, I missed a chance to talk with them about what drawing is about and what it can do. I was too focused on keeping them quiet because it was 'quiet homework' time. To the point where I would see myself as having to work against them. That's not a pattern I want to let myself fall into again. I didn't give them enough credit to think that they would be interested in learning about drawing and talking about it. I don't know what I would've been able to teach but I should've tried to engage them and found out what they wanted to know and do. If you're not working with people, and kids are people, then no one is going to have fun or benefit. And it doesn't always have to be fun. If your goals are aligned you can go through some pretty miserable stuff and still benefit. But it starts with that mutual understanding and agreement.

The Mostest Angry Man in the World!

Me in Costco Wearing Glasses in the Desert

The Child is the Father of the Man

Teaching Things

Why Are We Studying English?
1. To learn to create. Creating feels good.
2. To learn to interact. Interacting with others feels good.
3.To create a community. Being part of a community feels good.
4. To learn to think. Thinking is hard.
5. To become more powerful. Being powerful feels good.
6. To become more compassionate. Being compassionate is hard.
7. To learn to question. Asking good questions is hard.
8. The world wants things from you. What will you provide? If you can answer that, you can decide how you need English.
9. We are deeply deeply alone.
10. We are constantly surrounded by voices and messages.
11. We can improve. We can become better readers and writers. Improvement feels good.
12. The teenage voice is not valued by society. Only your money is.
13. There are lots and lots of problems in the world that people do not want to discuss.
14. Because 'whatever' and 'I don't care' is called apathy or nihilism and even that can be studied and examined and produce writing and is a way of reading so there really is no escape.
15. Because one day we will be dead and we won't speak to anyone on Earth ever again.
16. Because this class is not meant to sort you or tell you who you are. This class is meant to help you and reward you for coming to know who you are.
17. Because if you can read well, you can read people well and know things about them and what they are telling you that they don't want you to know.
18. Because, deep down, we all want to feel wanted and valued and successful and writing is an expression of that need.
19. Because some things are hard to say out loud to another person but need to be said.
20. Because we are all expert language users and everything we say and write is a continuation of human language that has been passed down for thousands and thousands of years and will continue on for as long as humans exist.

___________________________________________________________________

Questions I Have for Students?

1. Is it better to be happy or sad? Is it better to show happiness or look sad/bored.
2. Do adults want teenagers to text? Who makes phones? Who makes phone commercials? Who sells phones? How do phones make money?
3. When is it better/smarter not to try at something?
4. When is it better/smarter to avoid someone or something?
5. Is someone's job the most important part of that person?
6. What's more important: a grade, how hard you worked, or what you learned?
7. Is making money the most important part of life?
8. Is being happy the most important part of life?
9. Is it ever better to do something that makes you unhappy instead of doing something that makes you happy?
10. What kind of skills or traits make you a happy person?
11. What kind of skills or traits make you a powerful person?
12. How important is it to be physically attractive?
13. True Statement: You can say, 'I don't care' or 'whatever' to any statement, including this one. Is there ever any time when you would not say 'I don't care' or 'whatever'? When? To whom?
14. Why do teachers want to be teachers?
15. How is texting/instant messaging better than face-to-face conversation?
16. How do you feel when you can't use your phone?
17. Why is it better to give a silly answer than a serious one?
18. When, if ever, is it better to lie to someone than to tell the truth?
19. Why are TV shows and movies easier to watch than reading a book?
20. Why is it easier to text than to write something for English?
21. What's a school rule that you would change? How and why?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think with a lot of these questions, it's easy to see them as questions with throw-away responses. It's the kind of thing an adult would ask when they think someone's 'attitude' is wrong. Or they get at beliefs and attitudes that go unquestioned. There are unwritten rules that are more real and more true and part of that legitimacy stems from the fact that they aren't talked about---especially by people in authority.

And so, the purpose is not to belligerently question someone's attitude or invite ridicule or snark. Even though these kinds of questions seemingly demand those responses from the asker and the answerer. The purpose is to try to express that unspoken attitude clearly and examine it with respect and some sense of seriousness. If it has enough power to influence behavior, then it's worth talking about as a legitimate topic. The point is to validate and encourage---to try to gain some traction from slippery responses. The only test of a philosophy is to live it. And if you go on ignoring these beliefs and discrediting them, there is no incentive to change. They are designed to be ignored and discredited--speaking more specifically to 'apathy' here.

I guess it's also something that you can't really face head-on. Looking at it sort of makes it disappear.  You need that hook and some sense of purpose and a task before you can start talking about attitudes that underpin it all.

The Craw

Textbooks have to pay me 11 thousands dollars to use this one of a kind pen and paper representation of the craw. The body's most mysterious and prophetic organ. No one knows its location. Not even me.

Text Messages from Adolescentron.

Poor Adolescentron...

Hostile Pasta Aisle

"Whaddya do, Rowdywell? I'm your hallucinution! And these visions that pass before you like foggy revolving mirrors are doomed to repeat themselves, doomed to repeat themselves, doomed to repeat themselves
doomed to repent themselves
roomed to defeat themselves
groomed to deplete themselves
doomed to replete them shelves
doomed to repeat to repeat to repeat
to repeat themselves."

The Stranger of the Shaggy Trees

My advice to myself is to meet the future as you would a mysterious stranger in the woods. Greet the traveler politely and hope that its cloak conceals a swarm of puppies. However, at any moment be prepared to fight or run if it turns out to be a cougar with a habit.

The purpose of education is not to make us feel we know this stranger. No! It should thwart our every attempt to make assumptions and make us aware of how little we understand its nature. But, you know, also show us a path to figure stuff out about it. It's a process or something like that.

Part Two In My Ongoing Series: Creepy Faces in Wood Grain

Ignatius J. Reilly

A fat, lying, slob who proves that it isn't always about who you are on the inside. Sometimes, that inside is really awful.

Kill them with Kindness. Except...help them with kindness.