michael lambe

I tried to post this yesterday but I was trying to be all clever with the html, wasn’t I? So that didn’t work then. Well, here it is, yesterday’s blog as is:

No videos today. No tunes. No pictures. No fancy stuff. Just discipline. Just words.

I only had one class today because of the mid-term tests but I somehow managed to convince myself it started at 10.30 when in fact it started at 9.30, thus ensuring a glorious morning panic once I’d realized my mistake. Arriving on time, minus necktie, unshaven, hair sticking out in all directions, speech jumbled and confused, my Senior High Third year students (AKA: HOTTIES) looked at me in some amusement. “What time did you get up?” they asked. So I gave them a test. That bequieted them. Ha.

I just read this asinine fool’s opinion:

Gene Luen Yang is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area …. He produced a graphic novel (or “comic book,” as we used to call them), American Born Chinese, which has been nominated for a National Book Award in the young people’s literature category.

I have not read this particular “novel” but I’m familiar with the genre so I’m going to go out on a limb here. …comic books should not be nominated for National Book Awards, in any category. That should be reserved for books that are, well, all words.

This is not about denigrating the comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to say that illustrated stories don’t constitute an art form or that you can’t get tremendous satisfaction from them. This is simply to say that, as literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It’s apples and oranges.

Methinks:”Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

But then I read this calm and measured response from Neil Gaiman.
Then I felt much better.

I suppose if he builds a time machine he could do something about Maus’s 1992 Pulitzer, or Sandman’s 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, or Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan winning the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, or even Watchmen’s appearance on Time’s Hundred Best Novels of the 20th Century list. Lacking a Time Machine, it seems a rather silly and antiquated argument, like hearing someone complain that women have the vote or that be-bop music and crooners are turning up in the pop charts.

I like the bit where he says that he hasn’t read the comic in question, but he just knows what things like that are like. It’s always best to be offended by things you haven’t read. That way you keep your mind uncluttered by things that might change it.

Greenpeace have this rather splendid game up on their website here: Duke Anti Nuke

It’s all fun and games… until somebody detonates a warhead.

Finally, I spotted this rather amusing piece on the recent furore sparked by Rush Limbaugh accusing Michael J. Fox of shamelessly exaggerating his symptoms in a recent cell-stem research ad (see last post).

Now, I know this may offend those who suffer from this particular condition, and these individuals might not like it much when I suggest that a certain person with this diagnosis is exaggerating his symptoms, but I have to say, I think Rush Limbaugh is just pretending to be a dick. While the right-wing radio host does exhibit most, if not all, of the common characteristics of this behaviour, it’s so rare for all of them to coalesce at a single moment that one can only conclude Limbaugh’s most recent performances are nothing short of fraudulent. I’m no expert diagnostician, but nobody could be this big a one. Limbaugh must be acting.

More of that here.

Oh and I almost forgot! There are some brilliant six-word short stories up here.
Here are my favorites:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

God to Earth: “Cry more, noobs!”
- Marc Laidlaw

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Will this do (lazy writer asked)?
- Ken MacLeod

And now it’s time for all fine young High School English teachers (i.e. myself, Jules and John) to partake of foods and beverages. I bid ye all adieu.

So that was last night then. Before I went off and imbibed beers with Jules and John, which was before meeting up with Hyon Ju and Philippe and Hyon Ju’s friends, which was before I found myself singing karaoke till 4 in the morning. Gosh.

Quiet night in tonight.