Reality

In this festive holiday season, sometimes we forget how bad things can be out there. One student of mine reminded me just how much our world needs to change on Monday.

Over the weekend her older sister was shot. She is alive and in the hospital and the man who shot her is in police custody. She was doing nothing wrong, did not know the man who shot her, and was just walking down the street.

My fifth grade student and her older brother, who is in sixth grade, are switching off every day who misses school to babysit their siblings while their mom spends the days in the hospital at her daughter’s bedside.

As an adult who has experienced the loss of a loved one, I still have no idea how to even approach my student. There is no reason that at 10 years old she should be trying to cope with such a tragedy. This student and I aren’t particularly close, but she clearly wanted to talk to someone about it when all I had to was ask her how her weekend was on Monday morning for her to tell me what happened. Her brother refuses to talk to anyone about it, and only refers to it as “the incident on Friday”.

What kind of twisted world do we live in that this is a common occurrence for my students to face?

An Ape Displaced or A Largely Unnecessary Essay on the Morality of Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong's first appearance is that of the aggressor- he kidnaps Jumpman's girlfriend Paula and for no discernable reason ascends a construction site to escape the pursuing beau. However, this plan is absurd- Donkey Kong is, after all, an ape, and his transposition from natural habitat to urban environment leaves him unprepared for long term survival.

Script for a movie presented without comment, starring Noah Yuenkel and David Reed

AWKWARDLY INTENSE

[David and Noah are sitting on the couch. Hold shot from behind for several seconds.]

[Cut to front, then close-up as both turn and speak at once] DAVID&NOAH: Do you have the remote?

DAVID: Wow, that was intensely awkward.

NOAH: [slight pause] Awkwardly intense.

[Closer yet] DAVID [with dawning insistence]: Intensely awkward.

Now cutting to various scenes as the battle escalates

[NOAH walks past DAVID humming wistfully to a musical snow globe.] NOAH: Awkwardly intense.

[NOAH and DAVID flip through old yearbook. Finger point to awkward guy.]

DAVID: [ecstatic] Intensely awkward!

[DAVID squeezes past NOAH in an incredibly narrow hallway] NOAH: [satisfied] Awkwardly intense.

[NOAH turns on a Christmas tree full of ornaments of his face. Pause. He turns it off, leaving himself in darkness.] DAVID: [call from offscreen] Intensely awkward!

[DAVID climbs tree, triumphantly reaches for last branch, which is NOAH’s leg.]

NOAH [perching contentedly]: Awkwardly intense.

[DAVID bites down on a hard old baguette, fails to make a dent. NOAH grabs baguette and aggressively finishes the job. He does not relish what must be done.]

DAVID: You win! [with slight violation] You win.

Script for a movie, presented without comment

IN BED WITH A HONEY

[Slow pan from two pairs of feet up to a guy and a hot girl are wrapped in covers in bed, a foot apart. They stare blankly at each other, moving slightly on occasion, for a minute and a half.]

Naturally.

"Because he spent so much time with professor Oak. If you remember, they were like best buds. Its like, Ash left krabby at the day care FOREVER. So naturally the krabby is at level 60 or something, and it makes sense why he would evolve after one battle."

DREED to !QUOI

I Love You, George Takei

Played out, blah, blah, blah. Just read it.

"Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more will power, more drive, but because they know productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty which can never be excised from the soul, " from Procrastination via You Are Not So Smart

Delayed Introduction

"夢の途中(In the Midst of a Dream) by Shuichi Nakano"

Dear Everybody,

I realize that my addition to the reboot of this blog has been rather lacking, and it can only be attributed to my own personal failings and the accompanying ennui. Alas, this is but a feeble excuse! So, without further ado, I present an update, a preview, and discussions of my current state of affairs.

ONWARD

© Jake Naughton 2010

Transfixed by the firm hand of taxidermy and the gaze of GOD, we look ever onward and upward. From the PACIFICNORTHWEST™.

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

   -Walt Whitman, America

Lonesome Cold Weather: New Music!

from Gerda Suzanna Vegt

Dear Noah,

I hear it is unseasonably cold in Wisconsin right now. To help bear the cold, here are a few things to things to listen to that will warm your autumnal spirit. Cheers, to warmer hearts.