The End... Or is it a new Beginning (My Last Blog)

Greetings True Believers!

It might come as a shock that this is actually the last time I will blog for this class, and I just put it as a link on my facebook page! The semester just flew by and Friday is our last class together. But don't be sad, be glad because that means that summer is practically here. And after that, it's school again as usual (at least for me). I know Dr. Sexson will be here and I'm pretty sure some of you are even taking his Bible class with me this fall. For those of you moving on to bigger and better things, I wish you the best. For those of you that are not, don't worry, you're not alone.

This class was far different from all the other classes I took this semester. Mostly because they were accounting courses, but also because it had a feel that no other class has had. The student interaction with other students was far superior to anything I have ever done with other students. The professor treated us like fellow travelers on a journey, instead of his flock of sheep.
(I'm tired of being led like a sheep!) And the books were engaging, transformative, and insightful as well as entertaining; not at all like that "utter non-sense" I have been reading in governmental accounting.

(Of note, I added 2 more items to my inventory that arrived today and you have to read Comic 13 on the side. Trust me on this. Read Comic 13 in my links.)

I had to tell Dr. Sexson that this class even helped me enjoy my Spider-Man comics more! I was displeased with the Deadpool issue I discussed in my paper until I went back and re-read it. Then I enjoyed it incalcuably more after studing the themes in this class and seeing them to in the text. I learned to appreciate the book so much more, and isn't that really what this class was all about?

I enjoyed many of the books we read this semester and plan to keep several of them or pass them on to my brother or sister so that they may enjoy what I have experienced. They wont have Professor Sexson's lectures, but it's like taking the same tour with a different guide.

I have to thank Rio for all of his help in and out of class. He added so much to the lectures and was the "unofficial" seventh member of group 1.Thank You so much Rio. I also need to thank my fellow members in group 1 for all of their hard work, and moments that were just fun or entertaining. Speaking of entertaining, thank you to all the other groups for your contributions to my experience in this class. The individual presentations have been great as well (I wonder if James has worked out a musical number? We have to have at least one a day).

And Finally, thank you Dr. Sexson.

The Winner of the Edith R. Mirrielees Prize

Candy Corn Stripper

All's well in Roswell, where the dead make room for
the living and the Flying Saucers leave the cows alone,
for now. Now is not the time to marry Frankenstein's Bride
in a service performed by Elvis; better to stay on The Road
with Cormac McCarthy and avoid telling Viggo Mortensen
when we take off, he'll just ruin the trip anyway.

I wish we could just stay one night here without getting
involved in a big scene. Every night it's the cops driving by,
questioning the hotel guests about the shoot out, or
the guy who overdosed in 315. They never have these kind of
disturbances on Sesame Street. Why didn't we stay there? I guess
this is what you get when you pay for a stripper with candy corn.

The toaster wakes me from the dream I shared with Dr. King
as I pop off the couch and round up Alvin, Simon,Theodore,
and Dave to get to our gig on December 25th in Albuquerque.
As the bus makes a left turn, I sit down with the ghost of Bono
and paint the bus (red). My Ipod breaks and we can't lip sync
so we go out there and do it for real for the first time, and

in the front row, I see the Bride of Frankenstein. She waited for me!
I ditch The Chipmunks and give my baby a waffle iron, to make up
for what I did. She takes me back to her sorority where the vampire
sadomasochists indulge themselves with cottage cheese and handcuffs
until Officer Krupke takes me downtown for abandoning my band.
But I'm a good friend of Mayor McCheese, so I won't be here long.

Awards

Wow! I have some exciting news (at least it's exciting to me).

My poem "Candy Corn Stripper" won the Edith R. Mirrielees Prize that Dr. Sexson mentioned in class. (PS: does anyone know where the Habit restaurant is for the English Department Awards Ceremony? I would like to find out and be there!)

And finally, I know you are all excited about this, The College of Business Scholarship Committee selected me as a recipient of a 2010-2011 scholarship. Hooray for "The Enemy Camp!"

I just wanted to share with you guys and to tell you that these things are out there, all you have to do is try.

Comments on Mondays Class

I can't believe we spent as much time on my post/ paper topic as we did. Then again, I always wondered if one of my professors would let me talk about X-Men in class, now we know.

A very special Thank You to Rio for pulling up the cover to X-Men 101 (that was awesome!).

Well, I had better get to work researching my topic for this paper, but if anyone had even the slightest clue what I was talking about, please comment and let me know. It's always fun to meet other comic book fans or bring in new ones.

Bye

Thesis

In the past few months of this class, I have learned that highbrow and lowbrow are not mutually exclusive. As in the Star Trek episode "The Inner Light" that we watched in class, a very highbrow and puzzling element can exist in a very lowbrow source. And through a mysterious mental maneuver we can go from one to the other and find that both are enjoyable.

For years before taking this class, I have been a huge comic book fan (I wore a Wolverine shirt on Friday!), but after taking Emergent Lit. I can return to this passion over the summer and enjoy the stories so much more.

My argument, to prove that highbrow does not exclude lowbrow (or vice versa), is to illustrate the five themes we studied in class in perhaps the least likely of places: Marvel Comics.

1) The Myth of the Eternal Return- X-Men 101, etc.
2) The 20 Minute Lifetime- Daredevil 81
3) Life as Fiction and Language- Spider-Man 611
4) The World as Myth and Dream- House of M 1-8
5 Dolce Domum- X-Men: Deadly Genesis 1-6

Homecoming

Talk about arriving where we started:

When I first came to MSU in the spring of 2006, I was in Intro to Literature Study and the Freshman seminar where I studied The Tempest and The Alchemist respectively. Now that I have one semester before graduating I am taking a look at where I have been, and see that it's the same place (literally at MSU and most often in the same buildings as before).

Does this strike anyone as a coincidence? Well it shouldn't because it is only Theme five of this class: Dolce Domum.

My Inventory of the Middle Brow Medium

It took me a while to comprise this list but I finished it and wanted to share it on my blog. It's my inventory of Super Hero graphic novels (what else do you expect from a guy who wrote his Eng 123 Intro to Lit Paper for Sexson about Superman?)

Spider-Man: Visionaries-John Romita; Death of the Stacy's; Son of the Goblin; Birth of Venom; The Death of Jean DeWolfe; Spider-Man vs Silver Sable; Kraven's Last Hunt; Visionaries-Todd McFarlane I-III; Maximum Carnage; Marvel Weddings; Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane I-IV; Mary Jane I and II; Visionaries-Kurt Busiek; Marvels; Spider-Man/ Doctor Octopus- Negative Exposure; Venom vs Carnage; Toxin- The Devil You Know; Spider-Man- Breakout; Spider-Man/ Red Sonja; Spider-Man- Blue; Venom- Dark Origin; Spider-Man and the Black Cat- The Evil That Men Do; Coming Home; Spider-Man- Reign; Carnage; Marvel Knights Spider-Man I-IV; The Other- Evolve or Die; Feral; Civil War- Peter Parker, Spider-Man; Peter Parker- Back in Black; Essential Spider-Man I-IX; Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man I-III;

Spawn I-VI

Daredevil: Visionaries- Frank Miller I-III; Elektra by Frank Miller Omnibus; Love's Labors Lost; Legends- Typhoid Mary; Legends- The Man With Out Fear; Legends- Daredevil Yellow; Born Again; Elektra and Wolverine- The Redeemer; Gaurdian Devil; Parts of a Hole; Wake Up; Underboss; Out; Lowlife; Hardcore; King of Hells Kitchen; The Widow; Golden Age; Decalogue; The Murdock Papers; The Devil, Inside and Out I-II; Hell to Pay

(More Science Fiction Than Super Heroes, But still Graphic Novels) Star Wars:Tales of the Jedi Omnibus I-II; Early Victories; Tales of the Jedi- The Sith War; Star Wars Visionaries; Honor and Duty; General Grievous; Star Wars The Clone Wars I-IX; Empire- Betrayal; Empire- The Imperial Perspective; Crimson Empire I-II; Mara Jade- By the Emperor's Hand

Superman: The Death of Superman; World Without a Superman; The Return of Superman; Superman/ Doomsday; Superman- Our Worlds at War

Batman: Batman/ Grendel; Haunted Knight; The Long Halloween; Dark Victory; Catwoman- When in Rome; Batman vs Two Face; The Joker- The Greatest Stories Ever Told; The Dark Knight Returns

Watchmen

New Avengers: Breakout; Sentry; Secrets and Lies; The Collective; New Avengers- Civil War; Revolution; The Trust; New Avengers- Illuminati; New Avengers- The Reunion

Mighty Avengers: The Ultron Initiative; Venom Bomb

Avengers: Hawkeye; Kree/ Skrull War; Nights of Wundagore; Vision and The Scarlet Witch; Vision Quest; Darker Than Scarlet

Hulk: Heart of the Atom; World War Hulk- Frontline; Red Hulk; Red and Green; Hulk No More; Hulk vs X-Force; Son of Banner

The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story; The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven; The Book of the Iron Fist; The Mortal Iron Fist; Escape From the Eighth City

Ghost Rider: Vicious Cycle; The Life and Death of Johnny Blaze; Apocalpse Soon; Revelations; Hell Bent and Heaven Bound; The Last Stand; The Road to Damnation; Trail of Tears; Danny Ketch- Addict

TunderBolts: Faith In Monsters; Caged Angels; Secret Invasion

Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?; Bad Mutha; The Bride; Civil War- Black Panther

Essential Tomb Of Dracula I-IV

Omega Flight- Alpha to Omega; Iron Man- The Inevitable; Iron Man- Hypervelocity; The Hood- Blood From Stones; Storm

Emma Frost: Higher Learning; Mind Games; Bloom

X-Men: Marvel Masterworks I and II; The Dark Phoenix Saga; Days of Future Past; From the Ashes; Phoenix Rising; Mutant Massacre; Inferno; Magneto- Rogue Nation; Messiah Complex

Wolverine: Origin; The End; Wolverine by Claremont and Miler; Kitty Pryde and Wolverine; Marvel Comics Presents- Wolverine vol's I-IV; Wolverine- Weapon X; Essential Wolverine I-IV; Return of the Native; Enemy of the State I and II; Blood and Sorrow; Civil War- Wolverine; Evolution; The Death of Wolverine; Get Mystique; Origins and Endings

Wolverine Origins: Born In Blood; Savior; Swift and Terrible; Our War; Deadpool; X-Men - Original Sin; Wolverine Origins- Dark Reign; Romulus; Seven the Hard Way

In Total their should be 215 items listed above (and sadly I have only read about half of them). Now that you have read (or at least skimmed) the list, you may completely disagree with me calling this middlebrow. Some might consider this below low brow but I see comic books and a middle ground between Star Trek and Finnegas Wake- (not quite so wordy or full of live action)Thus the term Middlebrow.

(PS: I bought one today and updated the list since I posted this, so enjoy)

Same Argument, Different Delivery

I have two small notes of interest to post, so without further delay:

My brother had a dream about something (several that night in fact that I don't remember well enough to recount here) and when he woke up, he proceeded to tell me about them all, only to wake up for "real" moments later and see that he had been dreaming about telling me his dreams. It was three in the morning and he had to wait until later to tell me about it.

And I found a Finnegans Wake reference in Uncanny X-Men #255

Pyro: Trust a lawyer to love Joyce.
Stonewall: Ultimate precision of language...
Pyro: It's gibberish, mate!

That was it, but it was enough to catch and comment on.
And whether you agree or disagree with Stonewall, he later died in that same issue. (I don't know what that says about Chris Claremont's take on Finnegans Wake...)
Anyway, I've been reading X-Men from the beginning since last summer (a rather daunting task but well worth it!) and I could have read this months ago or years from now and just passed over it as random dialogue, but I caught it. And I blogged about it. And for some time now I will remember it. But what are the chances that I read this issue while in this literature class?
(Probably one in two.)

Confusion From the Enemy Camp

I thought of this just as we ran out of time in class, so now it must be shared the next best way: the blog postings.

As confusing as Dr. Sexson's stone dilemma was today, it has nothing on intermediate accounting. In our current chapter of 328, my accounting class is discussing how to record revenue on a project that covers multiple periods. (Our example is construction contracts)
So rather than count it evenly or even logically the powers-that-be have decided to do it in a p2c2e. Much like the stones that have a very complex and thought out process when in fact you could toss out 15 of them and just keep the one (it's as simple as that); my accounting professor explains the entire process of doing things right, teaches us how to do them wrong (so that we don't goof?), and tells us that any other process is not acceptable because. There is no reason, its just wrong because it is. Because the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) tells us its wrong and if you do it that way you go to jail. You go directly to jail. You do not pass 'Go'. And you do not collect $200.

(read Comic 05, it will make you laugh)

Eternal Recurrence of the Undead

Since Christmas I've been playing Left 4 Dead and L4D 2, and last night I watched ZombieLand, so nobody should be surprised when I say that I killed zombies in my dream last night. Or more specifically, they killed me.
I was living in a village in the middle of a field/ forest (it's a dream!) and we came under siege by zombies. Everybody died. Then the 'Cosmic Reset Button' was pushed and we all began again at the last 'Checkpoint' like in the video game.
This time, a little girl got bit by my cat Keelee (affectionately referred to as the "Keelee Monster", like a Gila Monster) and I put her and her mother under quarantine in case they became zombies (I know cats aren't carriers, but again, it was a dream). A warning came up in my dream that if I evicted the family from the village, they would be lost forever, but since they were most likely zombies anyway, I was not to upset by this notion, (and you shouldn't be either, just keep reading). So I erased them from the village to save everyone else. The zombies came and we died again anyway.
Reload again and since I came back I assume everyone else did to, even the mother and daughter I erased. But this time she was not infected. I thought that if no one made contact with the zombies like the last two times, (someone went 'Zombie Huntin' both times) we could avoid them finding our isolated village. I went to my dad's house and told him this plan. He liked it and went back inside, but since his house was part of civilization, there were zombies in his garage that attacked me. I killed them but was covered in there blood and wondered if I was not carrying the zombie plague back to my village. But I had to go back. So I returned to my village and brought the zombies closely behind me. (Damn!) Oh well, I grabbed a machine gun and a katana (Japanese Samurai Sword; these weapons are from the video games) and barricaded myself in a diner with seven other survivors. The zombies broke through and we killed hundreds of them. I mean hundreds! We fought them back and they started to retreat to the forest while the press showed up and began interviews with Mark Sanchez ( from the NY Jets! don't ask, I'm more confused than you are). I wondered why people were more concerned with him than they were about the zombies. I guess it was to give the zombies the chance to fight another day.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

I heard a song that very much reminded me of Fennigans Wake and wanted to comment about that. Like the "book" the song has many words that may confuse even its most beloved fan, but also each and every word has a meaning. There are no fillers (right?). So enjoy listening to the link below and think of it as Fennigans Wake in four minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9FGrFKkPnM

Highbrow vs. Lowbrow

The difference between highbrow and lowbrow is explained below:

a highbrow book or movie is one that you should read or see; it has won many awards or is mentioned in "cultured" circles as a great piece of work;
(Halle Berry would say, Monter's Ball, [Academy Award for Best Actress])

a lowbrow book or movie is one that you want to read or see; it is more widespread in the general public and is mentioned by virtually everyone;
(Halle Berry would say, X-Men, [Pop culture phenomenon])

Those Business Majors

I had a great time in Fridays class. I believe we blamed many problems on the "business majors." I am a business major and loved every second of Dr. Sexson's rant. It was thoroughly entertaining...

Like a Dilbert strip



(try link on the side)