1. David Leung was born and raised in Hong Kong and is an ardent student of Chinese poetry. He now teaches psychology at Lane Community College. He spoke to MB and my course in Am Working Class Lit and Research Writing about Chinese language and poetry. He sang. He recited poetry and prose to the rhythmic accompaniment of beating a plastic glass on the podium. He gave a spellbinding presentation on Chinese couplet poetry and the Sudoku like intricacies that occur within this tight form, thanks to the wide-range of punning in the poems and the way they can be read horizontally and vertically. It was one of the best days I've ever spent in the classroom.
2. As I move deeper into Catch-22, in preparation for my Lit of Comedy course, the absurdity continues, but more and more the narrative is overtaken by more soulful stories as characters like Yossarian and the Chaplain more fervently try to assert their humanness against the idiotic, life-denying, senseless demands of WWII and the endless levels of Army Air Corps bureaucracy.
3. I sign my emails with a lower case letters. It's a habit I got into. One of my students wrote me about it today and said it seemed modern and trendy to her. It's the first time in my life anyone has ever told me that anything I did seemed modern and trendy. I think I'll go ahead and consider myself modern and trendy for a few days, just to see what it feels like.
raymond pert
3 comments:
of course i want to also be modern and trendy so i am going to try it with everything i type
Sounds like the Chinese Puns were amazing.
I used to sign my name lower case 30 yrs. ago. Learned it from e.e. cummings - but then trends do seem to come and go. . .Still won't get me to buy orange and avocado green anything, but oranges and avocados. I could wear paisley again, however.
I think it's too late for anyone to brand me modern and trendy, unless leg warmers and scrapbooking somehow reemerge on the cutting edge of things.
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