Friday, October 26, 2012

Cool Reads and Cloud Atlas Movie Review


A.O Scott's review-

“Cloud Atlas” is a movie about migratory souls and wayward civilizations, loaded with soaring themes and flights of feeling, as vaporous and comprehensive as its title. Big ideas, or at least earnest intellectual conceits, crowd the screen along with suave digital effects and gaudy costumes. Free will battles determinism. Solidarity faces off against domination. Belief in a benevolent cosmic order contends with fidelity to the cruel Darwinian maxim that “the weak are meat the strong do eat.”

The Hunt For “Geronimo”- From the Author of Black Hawk Down- Behind the scenes of of the Bin Laden raid.

Where Servers Meet Saunas: A Visit to Google’s Finland Data Center

At Faviken, a tiny restaurant in remote northern Sweden, the 28-year-old chef Magnus Nilsson contrasts the sweet simplicity of foraged and farm-fresh ingredients with a kind of Viking bloodlust. He’ll serve a thrush with its decapitated head, or fire-roast a black grouse in hay, or slaughter a geriatric dairy cow and then dry-age it for nine months until, he writes, “the pure flavor of meat becomes secondary to the aromas of controlled decay . . . rather like a cheese.”

Monday, October 22, 2012

IRP Portfolio Tutorial and Mackie Voting + Franco


Vote      Anthony Mackie 1   Anthony Mackie 5/6    Anthony Mackie 7/8
Actor #2- James Franco
This week's syntax move one more time: participial phrase:

  1. Pursing his lips, he struggled not to call out his professor's obvious error.
  2. A lazy student, always looking for a corner to cut with his assignments, ironically, may do more work to get out of doing work.

Remember to flex with strong verbs!
Period 1  Period 5/6  Period 7/8
This week's cool reads:

Excellent syntax:
[O]verflowing dumpsters; unpaved streets lined with garbage; smoldering trash fires; little rows of shanties tucked into corners of the neighborhood for the local servant class, the kind of miserable hovels that stretch for miles in places like Mumbai; and a small, polluted lake that no one in their right mind would have swum in. We never drank from the tap, of course; even certain kinds of produce were said to be unsafe. The phone was temperamental, too, and so was the television cable.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Annotation for Huck


  • Key rhetorical devices which add meaning or depth (tone, structure, pacing, diction, jargon, credibility, etc.)
  • Modes of writing / genres which you can identify (humor, satire, Shakespearean drama, parody, Romanticism)
  • Highlight or circle any words you don’t know, or any allusions to other literary works, places, or things and jot down their meaning or reference in the margin.
  • Draw a question mark next to any section you would like to discuss, are unsure of, or think would be excellent to bring up in class discussion.
  • Draw a star or exclamation point next to the most essential passages or events in the book.
  • Make notes in the margin on any patterns you see or any other personal reactions that you may have to the reading.
Snuff said

A book list from one of my favorite science writers- Maggie Koerth-Baker

Sunday, October 14, 2012

IRP Non- Fiction Book Selection and Vote Round #1



Cool Books in Library List #1  List #2
Grains of Sand or Stars post

Now go get those books!
LRC Catalog   West Chicago Library    Winfield Public Library   Carol Stream Public Library



Alan Watts - Original #YOLO



This week's good reads...
For Chance Coats-
Soccer Violence In Argentina- From Outside Magazine ---For Bill Carter...
Last second zombie needs for Halloween.
Missouri or Missourah
Photo Essay to show Google's Cooling Centers-
Gross!  I'll use my debit card...Thanks...
Thoughts on Facebook's billionth member...
Who Will Mourn George Whitmore?
Despite a mounting belief among some civil rights activists associated with the N.A.A.C.P., and a few intrepid journalists, that Whitmore was innocent, he remained in prison, facing two death sentences. Depressed, frightened and alone, he pondered his imminent demise at the hands of the state. He asked other inmates: “If you were going to be put to death, which would it be? The chair? Lethal injection? What’s the least painful way to die?” A teenager, having committed no crime — ever — at that point in his life, pondering what means of execution he would choose: this was his reality...
Yet there are no plaques in honor of George Whitmore Jr., no schools named after him, or any civic recognition of his humble fortitude. His name should be known to every student in New York, especially kids of color, but it is not part of the curriculum.
This week, a flawed but beautiful man who offered up his innocence to New York City died with hardly any notice. To those who benefited from his struggles or who believe the city is a fairer place for his having borne them, I ask: Who grieves for George Whitmore?

Monday, October 8, 2012

Tuesday goods and clever writing...

 
 
At other times, though, the consumer of such a meal may feel as much like a victim as a guest. The reservation is hard won, the night is exhausting, the food is cold, the interruptions are frequent. The courses blur, the palate flags and the check stings.
Who knew Sesame Street is as corrosive as any other cultural product?  Sheesh...This excerpt is crazy but I love the writing.
Unlike Mitt, I loathe Sesame Street. It bears primary responsibility for what the Canadian blogger Binky calls the de-monsterization of childhood — the idea that there are no evil monsters out there at the edges of the map, just shaggy creatures who look a little funny and can sometimes be a bit grouchy about it because people prejudge them until they learn to celebrate diversity and help Cranky the Friendly Monster go recycling. That is not unrelated to the infantilization of our society. Marinate three generations of Americans in that pabulum and it's no surprise you wind up with unprotected diplomats dragged to their deaths from their "safe house" in Benghazi. Or as J. Scott Gration, the president's special envoy to Sudan, said in 2009, in the most explicit Sesamization of American foreign policy: "We've got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes . . . " The butchers of Darfur aren't blood-drenched machete-wielding genocidal killers but just Cookie Monsters whom we haven't given enough cookies. I'm not saying there's a direct line between Bert & Ernie and Barack & Hillary . . . well, actually I am.
From Gawker
 
From a biting review of Taken 2:
So yeah. Taken 2 also features Neeson saying, "I need you to listen to me very carefully" about 50 times, the obligatory torture scene where an Albanian tough erotically sniffs at Famke Janssen's face, and some of the worst expository dialog ever crafted by producer and co-screenwriter Luc Besson, which — as anyone who has seen, say, last year'sColombiana knows — is really saying something. The film is directed by the Besson acolyte Olivier Megaton, who is to his mentor approximately what a scarecrow is to a real man. It is among the worst movies I've seen all year, though its bad taste and overwhelming trashiness are so total as to be sort of entertaining. That is, as long you are entertained by things that conform to every known stereotype about our blissfully ignorant American selves and those who might one day come for our wives and daughters.
 
Muse brought it on SNL...I love it when the horns kick in...

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Peer Editing For Edge Question



Combine any slides for the Twain/ Huck presentations.  We will start on Tuesday in the LRC.  Get your hands on a copy of Huck Finn soon.  We will start very soon.  Books?


Participation in the writing contest is required and you might win a late pass!
Find your class and get started.  Week 1- Anthony Mackie- Due Friday P.M.
Period 1       Period 5/6      Period 7/8



Wednesday, October 3, 2012