The Little Mermaid on Broadway

Hey Guys,
Last weekend I went to NYC with my mom and sister to see the Little Mermaid on Broadway. I've never seen a Broadway show so I was really excited, especially because The Little Mermaid is like, my favorite movie of all time. Needless to say, it was AWESOME. It was so hard to believe that it is really a live show, because the singing and orchestra are amazing. I mean...WOW!! It was a great experience. I highly recommend it to everyone. It's a little expensive (especially for us college students) but it is totally worth the time and money. Check it out!!

Save Yourself from having a Heart Attack

As a biology major on my way to pre-med (hopefully) I read a very interesting email today that stated an article that says a person can save themselves from a heart attack. The article describes what to do if you are ever alone and are having a heart attack. The John City Medical Center Staff did the research on this topic and did an in-depth study on this very problem.

The article says that if you are ever alone, say driving home from work or something, and begin to feel severe pains in your chest that radiate up your arm and into your jaw, then you are most likely suffering a heart attack. Considering often many people are unfortunately alone when they experience a heart attack, a person has only about 10 seconds before they lose consciousness after feeling their heart beating improperly and feeling faint. However, a victim can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. The article states that a deep breath must be taken before everyt cough, and the cough must also be deep and prolonged. This cycle of a breath and a cough must be repeated about very two seconds without stopping until the victim begings their heart rate going back to normal or help arrives. The reason this seems to work is that deep breathing gets air into the lungs and deep coughing causes the heart to contract resulting in circulation of blood as well as heping regain rhythm.

I know this is not very writing/reading related, but I thought it was very interesting anyway.

Gambling problem

I have a problem. I may be the only person to predict the Green Bay Packers to have a shot at the Superbowl long before the season started. Granted the Packers are not in the Superbowl this weekend but if they were I planned to bet them. Nothing crazy, just a small wager to make the game more exciting.
Now I am not a betting man. In fact I have not made a bet all season. However, I would still like to place a little money on the game anyway. Now my problem is, I cannot figure out who the better bet is. The advice that I am recieving is to take the Giants to cover the spread. However, their secondary is beat up and I just do not feel confident in Eli Manning. Not to mention they are facing one of the best teams of all time, the New England Patriots. If anyone has advice I would appreciate it, Thanks.

Word and Quotation Week 2

Forgotten Word of the Week:

allecter


Quotation of the week:

"Invent first, and then embellish." --Samuel Johnson

Advice from a playwright

On Tuesday, January 22, I went to a preview of the play Wittenberg. It was a really creative play about Martin Luther, Dr. Faustus and Hamlet, set at Wittenberg. Hamlet was the star student and tennis player, and his two mentors/professors who were friends but great adversaries at the same time were Martin Luther and Dr. Faustus. It was a fantastic play and I really enjoyed it. Not only did it play around with history in a unique way, but it was thought-provoking and hilarious at the same time.

I hope it won't sound too cliché if I say that I was inspired by it. Every time I read an amazing play, I'm always inspired to write, not necessarily my own play, but just to write in general, to get something down before it's too late. I felt the same way when I saw this play. I found myself wondering what the playwright's inspiration was, and how long it took him to write it, and other things of that nature. At the end of the show, when the only people left in the theater was my honors class, they announced that the playwright and the assistant director were going to talk to us.

I listened to the fascinating things David Davalos, the playwritght, had to say for a good 20 minutes. I think all writers know that writing is a long process, but it helped to hear that even if it does take five years to put together one play, and to go through drafts and drafts and drafts, it is still worth it. I got the courage to ask him how he dealt with other people taking what he created and completely changing it. Among the useful and insightful things he had to say, one thing stuck out in my mind. It was something along the lines of, "If I didn't want my writing to be changed, I would have written fiction." I know that's not exactly how he said it (he put it better), but his point had an impact on me. It isn't always bad when one's work is drastically changed. Creating and putting on a play is a process, and there are a lot of different types of people involved in that who can improve it, even if they aren't writers. I've always had a hard time with the idea of professional writers being torn apart by people producing or publishing their work, but I can see now how sometimes change can be good, especially in regard to plays. Thanks, Mr. Davalos.

If anyone is interested in seeing Wittenberg (I highly reccomend it), it is playing now at the Arden Theater in Old City.

An Overlooked Attribute of Writing

I'm taking another class this semester. It is a graduate education course designed to give teachers strategies on how to teach reading and writing to secondary education classes. Last week we were having an interesting discussion about writing and I think it would be relevant to this class as well.

My professor began to talk about all the attributes of writing and how most people feel that writing is only a way to demonstrate what we know and most of the class agreed. She then went on to discuss an overlooked attribute of writing, which is writing to create new ideas. My textbook: Teaching Content Reading and Writing describes it as "a way of working through confusion or fuzzy ideas, a way of moving toward clarification and articulation of knowledge".

I have to admit that when I thought of writing before I didn't realize how important this type of writing was. Writing was linked to school assignments or the occasional poem or journal entry. It wasn't until last week's discussion that I realized how important writing to find that "Eureka" moment was to me. I always start off a paper by writing down my thoughts on any given topic in order to figure out what I really want to say. If you find yourself staring at a blank page on your computer screen the day before an assignment is due, try writing down ideas and hopefully they will turn into something brilliant.

Outside Perspectives

So this weekend, I am shooting a film that I have been writing over the past couple of weeks. Even though I have prepared immensely and gone over the script drafts several times, I always find something I can change or fix. It seems like an unending process and worries me that the final script for shooting this weekend should not really be the final script. Regardless, at some point, one must be happy with their work and feel comfortable with the changes that they have made. Now, I had made it to this point in my scripting process just a few days ago, and then I decided an outsider's perspective might solidify my feelings on the script as a whole. Of course, it could also significantly weaken it as well. I guess that was a chance I was willing to take.

And so, the results came in. My friend enjoyed the script quite a bit and I got tremendous feedback, seeing things such as grammatical errors or continuity errors that I had not seen before. Luckily, these errors were minor and my belief in the script was in fact solidified. For the time being, I look forward to a productive weekend where my shoot will go smoothly. Now, I know this won't happen (especially when shooting a movie), but hey, we can hope for the best, right?!?

So, all in all, I guess I am just saying, when it comes to writing, whether it is a script or a paper or a song or whatever, an outsider's perspective is usually very helpful. (The irony being that this post was not in fact double checked by another person and so, most likely, has some errors. I guess whoever reads this will just have to help me out :)

The times they are a-changin'

Geoffrey Nunberg, whose book The Way We Talk Now we'll be using this semester, had an audio commentary on NPR's Fresh Air Program last week:

Linguist Geoff Nunberg offers up a few thoughts on the use of a certain C-word in current electoral rhetoric. That word is "change" and it's what all the candidates are promising. But what does it really mean?

Give it a listen. I'll ask you about it on Monday.

Why We Write

As I am sure all of you know the WGA is on strike. How could you not know 87% of the American population has to at some point, on some level, related to a T.V. series. (By the way, 95% of all statistics are made up). If the strike continues I am sure I will blog about it again, because being expected to write as much as will be, knowing why these brilliant men and women are on strike should be something we take an interest in. (If not for the only reason that most of our TV shows will run out of episodes halfway through the semester).

None of this is my original point. My original point has something to do with our first writing assignment. As part of this strike writers, producers, executives, the masterminds behind the shows that millions embrace once a week ever night have started their own blog. It is here at Why We Write. I thought I would share this with all of you because most of them are clever anecdotes about why these writers write. My personal favorite would be Bill Lawrence, creator and producer of Scrubs (my current obsession, which may end endless if the strike is not resolved).

So, if after reading the O’Driscoll piece you still need inspiration I will link it again, Why We Write. For more information on the WGA strike please visit Unitedhollywood.com (also check out videos on youtube done by Speechless Hollywood – if you find yourself with loads of free time this MLK holiday).

Word and Quotation Week 1

Forgotten Word for this week:

allemang

Writing Quotation for this week:

"Have something to say and say it with all your might." -- George Lippard

Assignment 1

Assignment #1: "My days under the pendulous laburnum"
Due Jan 28, 500-600 words
Bring paper copy to class and send an electronic copy to my email box (ed@omnigatherum.com)

Write an essay on your own personal reading or writing history. Read the Dennis O'Driscoll piece, “The Library of Adventure" for inspiration. Think about the following questions (obviously, your essay does not have to encompass all of them):What was it like to read or write as a child? Has that experience changed as you've grown up? What books inspired you when you were young and do you still carry inside you vestiges of the experience of reading them? Do you create a specific environment in which to read or write? Remember, your essay shouldn't just be an anecdote. I want to know "what it all means" to you. Be specific. Focus on a specific incident, detail or situation and extrapolate.

Welcome

This blog is maintained by the Weekly Scribblers, the students and professor of Advanced Composition at La Salle University, Spring 2008. On it we will post about writing and reading matters. Some of our contributions may be inspired by classroom discussions, assignments we're working on, or issues about writing as we encounter them in our lives. Or we might just post about whatever is on our mind. We are not a closed society and invite all web readers to comment freely on our posts.