Adding a human element to the literature

    One thing I took away from Roth talking was that writing still isn't "easy" for him. Obviously, he has a natural inclination towards it and comes out with some pretty great results, but he is human just like the rest of us and still struggles to create something that he finds worthy. I find that I feel a similar way about music composition -- the thing that I am majoring in. It is what I am most talented in, work the hardest for, and the art that I have been the most successful in creating. But when people ask if it comes "easy" to me? Hell no. Writing a good piece of music is one of the most difficult challenges I have ever faced, and the better I become at it the more difficult it becomes.
    I felt that Roth had a similar notion towards writing, particularly when he admits that he still has no clue how to start a story. He has created beautiful, successful pieces of writing that brim with confidence and control over the language. But he didn't sit down and just have it all flow out. This confident, lucid language that he has created came from hours of discarded sentences and irritably rewritten paragraphs until he finally came up with something that he is satisfied with. This is one reason it is so nice to hear the author talk after finishing his book. It shows the human element that goes into a work of art or literature. I find that when I have finished a piece, I will go back and listen to the complicated counterpoint and harmonies and wonder "how the hell did I write this? It must've been a fluke. I'll never be able to do this again." Even something that I have done myself seems inaccessible and unrealistic to create viewed as a listener, but when I start on a new project and fight through dozens of deleted work and struggle with it for hours and hours, something beautiful (at least in my eyes) miraculously emerges.
     So, hearing Roth talk about how he writes was a great way to understand the process that a successful writer goes through. How, no matter his talent or achievement, he still struggles to craft a story and portray the language in a way that he is happy with.

The perfect combination

        I think blog writing holds considerable merit because it helps writers to develop a voice -- and to focus on getting a point across clearly. Academic papers put so much emphasis on the actual language used that the actual message is often jumbled and loses coherence. With a blog post, we can forget about strict grammar rules and syntax and diction and so on and just write. This allows for us to focus all of our attention on what we are trying to say -- and that is always the overall purpose of writing something -- to get a point across. I think academic papers have an importance of their own, as people need to know how to form sentences and paragraphs into a cohesive argument. Therefore, I think that writing blogposts in conjunction with more formal papers is the best way to develop a strong writing voice. I enjoyed the mixture that we did in this class, and I felt that it was very well balanced. Blogs also allow for much shorter assignments, which opens up room to work on a  much larger variety of topics and techniques. I think that this is one of the things that is great about blogs -- the variety of things that you can work on. With academic papers, you spend days or even weeks focusing on one certain technique, where as with blogs you could work on 3 or 4 in just a couple of days. But on the other hand, term papers allow you to work harder on perfecting something specific. Once again, this shows that an optimal approach for develop writing technique and voice is a combination of the two.

Jewish cat!

Trying to get on the roof

      So, one of my friends and I tried to get on the roof of Alice Lloyd. We thought we were so prepared -- we found a door to the roof, youtube'd how to pick a lock, found a bobby pin. We picked at the lock for awhile to no avail. So, refusing to give up, we went down to the 3rd floor and tried to pry open the window that opened directly to the roof. Luckily, we found a fellow LHSP english class member who had a toolset with complete with pliers, hammers, and screwdrivers. I fought with that damn lock for what seemed like hours. Long story short, I broke most of those tools and didn't get any further than just completely wearing myself out. I tried for awhile to physically pry off the window with my hands, but it wouldn't budge. So, still refusing to give up, we went outside and tried to scale the wall, but handholds stopped happening halfway up and we had to drop back down. Finally, disheartened, we had to call it quits. For now.

Brainstorming!

     I found this article to be particularly engaging and easy to read. This is because it is written through a series of real-life examples that help to interest the reader and solidify the point, instead of just explaining a point. This makes it so so so so so so much more interesting and easy to read.
However, I have a gripe with the article. It starts by explaining how effective brainstorming is -- giving plenty of examples and totally convincing the reader. Then, it ends by telling us that brainstorming doesn't work.

     This highlights a larger problem with writing in general -- it is so easy to find examples to back up any point, and to convince a reader. Since he had real life examples and statistics to back up something that is proven ineffective and successfully convinced me of brainstorming's merit -- why couldn't he be doing the same thing while using examples to disprove brainstorming and show a more effective method of creating ideas? By starting the essay like he did, it made it difficult for me to trust him for the rest of the paper. I think he could have made a more effective and concise essay by just taking out the whole beginning about brainstorming. 

      Overall, I think it is written well. Although it establishes an untrustworthy tone, the overall writing style and examples make it a very enjoyable read.

Appetite

  No one has ever believed what I say about my appetite until they actually see me eat. I eat an average of 8000+ calories per day, and somehow am unable to gain any weight. My typical food day in West Virginia would go like this: for breakfast -- a pizza (whole), egg and ham omelet, and bagels with cream cheese and salmon. After this, I eat protein bars and random assorted snacks to hold me over until lunch. Lunch usually consists of some sort of pizza again, and three or four sandwiches of some sort (preferably subs, preferably from Jimmy Johns). Protein bars and salads are once again consumed to hold me over until dinner. For dinner, my mom is a great cook, and cooks a nice meal (often of chicken or some sort of meat) every night in huge portions. This is followed by desert and then random meals of pop-tarts and protein bars until bed time.

          Now, in college, I eat almost primarily granola and yogurt. And cookies. The cookies here are so damn good. So is the granola. Everything else is so awful. But those are delicious. I don't know if I quite manage my 8000 calories a day here, but if I do it consists entirely of granola and yogurt and chocolate chip cookies. I strategically seat myself right next to the cookies and snag armfuls every time a new tray is brought out. I have trained myself to be able to judge almost exactly how fresh or old a cookie is by how the light glistens off of the chocolate. Not just -- if it's glistening they're fresh and if they aren't they are cold -- I can tell almost exactly how fresh or cold they are now. From experience. I also steal a lot of stuff from the dining hall. Not really because I want it, but just more kind of in spite against how terrible the food is. Anyways, my diet is pretty messed up here. They need better food.

I hate you sleep

Sleep. Ha. I remember that. It has slyly alluded me ever since college has started. I'll be dozing off all throughout the day -- straining as hard as I can to keep my eyes open and mind attentive. Then, the second I get into bed -- I feel like running for miles. I immediately get so much energy that I don't know what to do with it. I lay awake for hours trying to stop my brain from thinking about a million things at once. Then, when I finally maybe am able to fall asleep, my roommate has an unfortunate tendency of coming into the room and turning the lights on at 4 in the morning. Add two concussions into the mix and some crazy concussion-induced awakenings where I am not quite sure where or who I am for a little while and countless 3 AM Jimmy Johns adventures and the occasional 3:30 Pizza House trip and... Well. Sleep. Shit. I miss you so. I'm able to sleep like a baby in written theory class -- but does that really count? My sleep schedule is ridiculous. Take now for example. It's 2 in the morning and I have an 8 O'clock class on north campus. Why am I not asleep? This makes no sense. Why are you so cruel to me sleep? Why can't we just get along? Why do you overwhelm me with your seductive powers when I'm practicing the piano but desert me in the waning hours of the night? I miss sleep.

Maud Newton's blog

        Out of the literary blogs listed, I found Maud Newton's the most interesting. Why? Well, first -- the aesthetics. It has a pleasant looking casual font, and begins every post with a picture. These don't necessarily add much to the overall content, but it helps to catch one's attention initially and encourage them to dig deeper. I found this to be an issue with many of the other literary blogs. The content may have been good, but if there wasn't something that immediately drew me in, there's a good chance I would never have read any further.

        This seems like a pretty obvious one, but another thing that makes the Newton blog good is that the author of the blog is quite a good writer herself. There are far too many blogs on the internet that are poorly written -- people tend to forget that beyond all the pictures and glitz a blog is, in essence, writing. Maud maintains a very readable style that is casual and simple yet still serious in relaying the message.

      This blog seems to jump around from topic to topic without too much of a common thread at times. I can't quite decide if this is a good or a bad thing -- it keeps my interested piqued from not getting worn down by the same thing over and over again; but at the same time, I can never quite figure out where it's headed or what the overall theme of the blog is. I think the concept of jumping around from topic to topic is good, but maybe could be executed a little bit better (having somewhat of a common thread or explanation behind why she is posting such and such). For example, she jumps from a post about her grandfather's rocking chair to a post about a painting imagining a dog's life after death. 
It took me a little while to find it, and I was almost about to complain about a lack of an about me -- but I found it and it is very informative. I think having a good about me is an essential part of a blog -- don't we want to know something about who is writing it? The blog also has a link to her published writings, which shows how accomplished she is as a writer -- something that adds merit to her posts. Finally, all of the posts are very well organized into easily accessed and navigated archives.



     I can't find much wrong with this blog, and I think that it is a great example on how to write a successful blog.

Entirely unrelated picture to catch interest

The concept of free time in the eyes of a musician

As a musician, the concept of "free time" is something that comes with a certain deal of grief. For an honest, true musician -- the work is never completed. It is not like other majors -- where you have a set amount of work to complete and then it is finished. No -- the work a musician does is never completed. We practice hours a day to improve our technique, to learn new pieces -- but we never finish. The greatest pianists in history had room for improvement. There are always harder passages to be played, longer pieces to learn. In fact, the harder I find myself working -- the more work I receive. At the beginning of the semester one of the pieces I was assigned was Schubert's "Wanderer Fantasy," a 20+ minute, single-movement virtuoso piece. I spent hours every day working through it's difficult, awkward passages. I am finally almost finished with it. Since I am about to finish it, my teacher has consequently assigned me a new piece since he thinks I did well on the Schubert -- Liszt's B Minor Sonata. This beast puts the Schubert to shame -- 35 minutes of unbridled ferocity -- nearly 60 pages of nightmarish technical passage after nightmarish technical passage.
Composition is the same way -- hundreds of hours of work go into each finished product, but as soon as I finish one piece I immediately start on the next. This may all sound like a terrible, cyclical unrewarding process -- however, I believe that a true musician finds this constant work to be a personal necessity instead of an assignment. I don't decide to undertake a huge project like the Liszt B Minor because my teacher told me to -- I do it because I personally feel the need to push myself and learn something beautiful in the process. The work necessitated to potentially be a great musician is unmatched in any other field -- I've left the music building at midnight and walked by the some of the same people still practicing that I saw when I got there at 8 in the morning. It requires an almost obsessive commitment -- a commitment that at times is life-draining and awful and at other times is immensely rewarding. People complain about all the work they have in Econ or Orgo or as an engineer and so on -- but they have never had to learn and memorize 100 minutes of varied and challenging music in a semester, or tried to master a singing tone on a cello, or tried to write a twenty minute symphony composed of 25 separate instruments. I'm not saying music is necessarily harder or more mind-bending or whatever -- just that the time commitment is at time insane -- and in some ways -- never-ending.
Oh, what do I like to do in my free time? I love "The Wire" and watching youtube videos of animals doing really stupid stuff.

Beauty Found Amongst the Danger

A steep Alaskan ski descent

Climbers working towards  the Summit of Annapurna -- reputedly the world's most dangerous mountain

Tyler Bradt at the lip of the 186 foot Palouse Falls -- setting the world record kayak waterfall descent

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think that pictures capturing adventure and danger are some of the best examples of this.

There is a certain unique allure to these photos. There is so much going on -- the planning and preparation, the fear and uncertainty, the risk and potential reward, the pushing of one's limits -- it is all caught frozen forever in a moment of beauty. The placidity of the still photo lends a calmness to what is taking place. Tyler Bradt's descent over Palouse Falls took just over 3 seconds -- an almost anticlimactic thing to watch as he conquers one of the most impressive and dangerous feats in history. However, the photograph of him going over the lip suspends this moment in time.

Similarly, the pictures of the climbers summiting Annapurna -- supposedly the world's most dangerous mountain -- captures the beauty amidst the danger. Many people have died trying to get to where they are -- the dangers they have faced and have still yet to face are immense -- but in this moment they are framed above the clouds and surrounding mountain peaks in an ethereal setting.

Saying more by writing less

    Dialogue is something that I have so much trouble writing -- making it seem both realistic and engaging -- and something that Roth does very effectively. Roth writes in a simple, straightforward manner, devoid of much excess descriptions. The sentences are also mostly short. This moves the conversation forward in a rapid, realistic way. He has a good sense of when to break up the flow so it doesn't get too monotonous, interrupting the dialogue with phrases like "she didn't answer and walked ahead of me again." "She turned to me and smiled." Brief interruptions like this help to set the scene without being long enough to turn our attention away from the conversation that is happening. He could have easily continued the dialogue with out including something like "she turned to me and smiled," but even a description that simple both sets the general mood of the conversation and adds something concrete that we can envision. When there is too much open dialogue with no description, it sometimes becomes hard to imagine people actually speaking these words.
     When I try to frame the scene of a conversation, I usually ended up adding too much description, thus breaking up the flow of the conversation. I do this out of fear that the plain dialogue will get boring too quickly. However, a skilled writer like Roth shows how using subtle interruptions within a conversation can be effective without going on for long or even saying much. I think we can learn much from Roth's writing by paying attention to the simple but effective way in which he frames and relays a conversation.
    He also -- in this passage at least -- is generous with using periods instead of commas. This makes the writing read very easily and gets the point in a lucid manner, without any unnecessarily long sentences to muddle up things. You never have to read over a sentence to understand it's meaning -- the point comes across clearly. This makes the writing both more engrossing and easier to read. 
    An author as skilled as Roth shows how much we can learn from such a short and simple excerpt -- by writing exactly what needs to be written without any unneeded fluff.
    

The Most Beautiful Closing in Literature

Alright -- seeing as I have read an incredibly minuscule amount of all the great literature, I realize this is a bold claim, but I thought it would be a catchier title than "The most beautiful closing in literature that I have read."

The final paragraphs of Norman McClane's "A River Runs Through it."

         Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

         Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. That river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

         I am haunted by waters.

It is impossible to truly summarize what is so powerful about this ending to someone that hasn't read the book -- so if you haven't, go out and get a copy!

The story follows Norman McClane through his childhood and early adulthood as he grew up flyfishing in Montana. Everything in his -- and his family's -- life revolves around the fishing the rivers. Here he is, now an old man writing about his life and his family as they grew up together fishing the trout-filled waters. However, all of his family is now gone -- he is alone amongst the water. All he has are his memories. He closes with "I am haunted by the waters" -- a poignant ode to his life and family that now exist only as memories drawn out by the rivers that have played such a defining role in his life. It is the most painful, nostalgic, heartfelt closing -- and single sentence -- that I have ever read.

An essential, boring process

Sadly, I found voting to be quite a mundane process. I always hear people talk about how exciting it was to do for the first time and say stuff like "I felt like I connected with my country so well!" or "I feel like a true part of democracy" or whatever. I am very much into politics, and felt absolutely obligated to vote. Nonetheless, the process involved standing in a really long line for two hours and then filling out a little paper slip. It felt more like making a trip to the DMV than a notable step into adulthood -- nothing too exciting about the process itself.

Words of Wisdom

When I found out this was going to happen, I realized it was inevitable. 

-Raymond Carver



And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one. 

-Virginia Woolf 

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” 

-Ernest Hemingway

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

-E. L. Doctorow

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

-Mark Twain

Why does the beginning make no sense

    The scene that stuck with me the most was the introduction to Magnolia. Why? Because it made no damn sense. Something to do with a scuba diver and a plane crash or something and then some guy killing himself but really his dad or mom or someone killed him but he was trying to kill himself but was somehow an accomplice and this whole time there is still a scuba diver dead at the top of a tree and then shit I don't even know. This scene ends with the narrator saying something about coincidences.
    Ok. So, let's cut to the opening credits (is that what they are called?) introduce some characters, maybe find out one of them is a scuba diver and another is suicidal and we'll start piecing things together. Oh wait never mind lets never mention or have anything to do with the beginning. What?
    Unless I missed something crucial, none of the characters or events had a single thing to do with the rest of the movie. Not only does the introduction on it's own make no sense, but it's placement within the movie (especially as the start -- which is so crucial to developing a plot) without having a single thing to do with what actually happens is remarkably odd.
    So, either I missed something and it all ties in, or it truly does have nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Assuming that the latter is true, this is quite an interesting way to start a movie. First, it certainly sticks with you (you finish the movie and are like "wait, they never explained that shit at the beginning?!?"). Also, it adds yet another layer of intrigue to a movie that already has about 40 dozen layers of intrigue and general shit that doesn't really actually make sense. The technique of using something ostensibly unrelated to introduce something is an interesting thing to consider, whether it be a movie, music, or writing.

Ives and Scriabin

    Since my last blogpost was about music that I enjoy that I don't consider to be particularly "good" music, I decided to make this post about music that I do consider to be good. The first piece I have picked out is "The Unanswered Question" by Charles Ives, an american composer of the 20th century.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkaOz48cq2g

    Now, I'm not going to dive into any sort of deep analysis of it regarding the harmonies, form, etc. but rather just what I find so beautiful about it as a listener. Too often, composers (of any sort of music, but particularly of 20th and 21st century classical) seem to think that a piece needs to be complex to be interesting. However, Ives is able to say so much and create such a beautiful sound with so little. The piece opens with an exceedingly simple, slow chord progression -- and yet, nothing more is needed. Any more movement, any added notes -- anything added to the strings would harm the piece. It is so concise, and so effective.
     Then, atop this simple, tonal progression -- the trumpet and woodwinds begin to come in. They enter with dissonant melodies that grow increasingly more convoluted as the piece develops. Yet, the whole time that these almost, well, ugly melodies arise -- the string progression is repeating itself underneath. This stark contrast between simple and beautiful -- and complicated and dissonant -- makes the beautiful even more beautiful and the ugly even uglier.

    Another piece that I find particularly well written is Scriabin's Etude Op.42 No.5, a piece that I am currently learning.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudZ3J4EeoQ

    Although different from the Ives piece in so many ways, I think it shares the same basic elements of good writing. While it is exceedingly complex and difficult at times, it never adds notes or complicates itself without reason. Whenever the texture builds the piece is crescendoing and working it's way to a climax or some important transition. And then, among the dissonant, loud, banging chords -- a gorgeous melody arises. Like in the Ives, this contrast serves to enhance both parts.

    I don't want it to seem like I only consider classical music to be "good" music. In reality, a small amount of the music I listen to is actually classical. I just figured that people reading this post are less likely to be familiar with it, and it would be an opportunity to slightly expand people's horizons. Admittedly, both of these pieces are somewhat dissonant, and may not be accessible to people that haven't listened to much classical. If this is true, here is a piece that is hard not to like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amGl9Qmgu7E

And also, for people that think that all modern classical music sucks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga_280If08A

Learning to enjoy shitty music

     I never used to be a fan of shitty music. It annoyed me to no end -- as a classical musician I always felt an obligation to listen to deep, meaningful music. Not necessarily classical -- but stuff with a message.
     However, I think there is a time and place for everything, including music with guys from the hood yelling about selling coke and shooting people. Don't get me wrong -- I still love classical music and generally well-made rock and jazz and hip hop. But when I'm packed into a bus between campuses or eating Jimmy Johns or lifting weights and so on, it's not really the place for a Schumann Piano Quintet or for Tupac to be talking about the struggles of the poor. It's the time for Meek Mill to yell about his 6 or 7 Rolls Royces and for Jay Rock to angrily talk about selling coke to addicts in Watts. Now, I don't exactly get much out of this, as I don't own any Rolls Royces and am not a coke dealer or user -- but maybe that's the point. I don't think music always has to be taken seriously or move you. Sometimes you just need a loud bass and aggressive lyrics to help entertain you through life's more mundane tasks (not that there is anything remotely mundane about eating Jimmy Johns).
   
   

Music school life

        I always hear that college is the most exciting time of one's life -- all the parties, new people, amazing things you learn -- and so on. Particularly going into music school, I attributed a sort of romance to all the wonderful music I would hear and practice. Unfortunately, I'm finding college a bit... well -- a bit duller than I expected. Don't get me wrong -- There have been fun parties, I've met some great people, and learned a lot. Music school certainly has it's plusses, and I'm having an enjoyable time here. It's just that my previous life in West Virginia was kind of ridiculous -- skipping school whenever it rained enough to get the local creeks flowing so I could go canoe off of waterfalls; biking down mountains at stupid speeds on the brink of being totally out of control while dodging trees and boulders; drifting my little stick shift Subaru around blind mountain road corners in the spirit of the Fast and Furious movies late into the night. Granted -- my life expectancy probably hovered around the low 20's if I kept this lifestyle up, but it was great nonetheless.
       And in the midst of this, music was always there. I would find inspiration for my compositions from the excitement of these excursions. I would play piano just for the hell of it, banging out ridiculous improvisations never intended for anyone to hear for hours on end.
       Through all of this, I always loved creating and playing music -- but it was never what my entire life revolved around; instead, it was an extension of what was happening in my life. Now, as a music school student in the flat suburban town of Ann Arbor, it is the opposite. Music has taken over my life, and my non-musical activities are an escape from the music. Due to the competition and pressure, practicing and composing are starting to become tasks that I feel obligated to complete in lieu of things I would do if I happened to feel like it. I still love the music and have no plans to not stick with it -- but I am entirely unsure of what the future holds.

Mountain Biking in 5 minutes from my house

Me being reckless

      

Great movies

Chinatown is a truly great movie. Normally, I don't particularly enjoy older movies -- Chinatown however, is still awesome. Which brings me to the what I think is the first characteristic of a great movie: being timeless. While there are certainly outdated elements (how can there not be in a 40+ year old movie?) it is still as powerful and exciting today as it must've been when it was released. The plot, the wit, the tension, the mystery, the intrigue, the love story, the heartbreak -- they all withstand the test of time.

Next, it has great acting. Truly fantastic acting. Jack Nicholson kills it the whole movie. I'm not usually particularly discerning of the divide between good acting and shitty acting, but even I was able to tell that the acting was terrific.

Third, it manages to have a layered, intricate plot without falling apart. There are so many subtle elements, so many dense and confusing plot twists -- it takes several viewings to really get a hold on everything that is going on. It is accessible enough to make sense and be entertaining upon the first viewing, yet complicated hold a viewers interest in subsequent watchings. But, even with all these plot twists, there are not gaping plot holes or inconsistencies. This is extremely uncommon, particularly nowadays. For example, people say a movie like Inception is a "great" movie. However, there are so, so many inconsistencies and times that the movie contradicts itself that I personally found it to be a pretty bad movie. And then, people are like "but it's a fantasy movie. You go to the movies to escape from reality, it doesn't have to make total sense!" This logic is severely flawed. I agree that movies don't have to necessarily be realistic -- I don't go into a movie like Inception and then get pissed and leave when the world starts flipping around and doing all that weird shit. However, a movie takes you into it's own world for the time that you are watching it. If the world that the movie creates doesn't openly fall back on the rules it has imposed; regardless of how many velociraptors and naked amazon women flying around in spaceships there are, I can deal with it. However, if the rules of the world created are contradicted within the movie, than it is not excused by any claim of the general fantastic nature of the movie. For example, in Inception, we are informed early on that if a sleeping body experiences the sensation of falling, then the person wakes up from their dream. This is a crucial plot element. In the climax of the movie (aka the most important story defining part), the person falls in their dream, and is thus woken up. That's not how it works -- the world defined within Inception said that the waking body has to be falling, not the dreaming one. Therefore, it contradicts itself and is inconsistent with the rest of the story. 

I got entirely off-track there, and in returning to Chinatown, I think the final element of what makes it such a good movie is it's wonderful soundtrack. As a composition major, I understand that it is not hard to write a nice, appealing soundtrack with romantic strings and V-I harmonic shifts. This is what most music soundtracks are -- they are almost interchangeable with each other. However, it is entirely apparent that the music in Chinatown was written with the feel of the movie in mind. Ignoring the fact that it is really beautiful music, it fits the tone of the movie so well -- the sad trumpet melody soaring above the gritty black and white streets as Nicholson's life spirals out of control. It adds an entire new element to the movie.

Oh, and it doesn't have a happy hollywood ending. Nicholson's girlfriend gets shot in the back of the head right at the end, and everyone is just like shit. It's depressing, but it really, really sticks with you. I can recall every last detail of that scene.

Mitt Romney

Ok, so Mitt Romney is an absolute total asshole. Truly a terrible person. But aside from that, he also happens to be stupid. Why is he a presidential candidate?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6vMqnP3TM4&feature=related

If George Orwell watched this video he would probably personally hunt down and traumatically harm Romney for abusing the English language so badly. This ad is the absolute epitome of everything bad about rhetoric that Orwell wrote his article about.

Why is it so bad? It says literally nothing. "I'm gonna do something to government. I'm gonna make it simpler, and smaller, and smarter. I'm gonna get rid of programs, turning programs back to states. And finally, making government itself more efficient... It is a moral imperative for America to stop spending more money than we take in."

Are you kidding me? I got legitimately pissed off listening to that again so I could write it down. No shit it would be nice to have a simpler, smarter, and more efficient government. No one's gonna argue with that. No shit we need to work to get rid of our debt (which by the way, Obama has done a good job of so far). Oh, but wait! Romney forgot to tell us how he would go about doing any of this -- any sort of plan at all. Instead, he just listed off things that sound nice to hopefully appeal to the people so stupid as to not care that he it literally just listing off nice sounding things. By the logic that this ad was somehow successful, the republicans should get some prancy 4th grader to run for the next election and give a speech like this: "I'm gonna do something to the world. I'm going to end hunger, incite world peace, and bring wealth to all nations. I'm gonna get rid of bad people. Finally, there will be no more unhealthy people. It is a moral imperative for people to be healthy... I will fix all of this." Then all these remarkably dumb people can sit at their tv and be like "Wow. I'm blown away. I would love for there to be world peace. Nobody likes starvation. Nobody likes bad people either! And being unhealthy isn't doing anything good for us or our country anyways! This guy... This guy right here really understands what our country needs."

Weren't we taught when we were like, 5 or 6 years old that writing totally baseless sentences without backing them up in anyway sucks, and makes for really shitty writing? And really, isn't' someone that is running to lead the most powerful nation in the world running his campaign by doing this? This is awful. Please don't vote for Mitt Romney. I hate people.