tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16635885.post8148281231617729225..comments2023-10-28T06:25:24.368-05:00Comments on Adamant's Fire: Five Things I Could and/or Would Have Asked Chuck Klosterman If There Wasn't a Gap Between My Brain and Spinal Cord.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331961951316180787noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16635885.post-78298587091575064302008-11-24T20:20:00.000-06:002008-11-24T20:20:00.000-06:00I'm going to tackle #5. My students know that som...I'm going to tackle #5. My students know that sometimes I wander off into a comedy routine within my own mind. A little slips out, and most of the class gives me blank stares which reminds me that my generation is *not* this generation. <BR/><BR/>I wonder what this generation actually owns? The last memes I can actually remember being touted by students would be 'All Your Base', 'Lightish Red', and 'Another Fist!', which are pretty old when you consider that those jokes came out when the current crop of HS seniors were still in elementary. If you can think of some new, hip line that all the cool kids are saying, lay it on me.<BR/><BR/>I wonder what cultural gap exists between my generation and the last. Seems every time I talk with someone of a certain age all they can remember is Kennedy, Vietnam, and the Moon shot. None of which they can joke about. You'll notice Family Guy mostly leaves those subjects alone, too. Mostly.<BR/><BR/>My generation (80s/90s) found indignant humor in practically everything. This continued up until about the time reality TV cranked up. Not that it's related. But there was a palpable change in what students laughed at starting around the turn of the century. With that change, funny became tougher to find.<BR/><BR/>My students love Family Guy. They can't tell you why; all they know is that they laugh every time Stewie cusses. 'To The Moon' and all other Honeymooners' jokes mean nothing to them, but they still laugh. Any guesses as to why? I'm stumped. Maybe they just don't want to be the last ones to get the joke.<BR/><BR/>Kids have asked me why they have to study history and English. They can understand the need to grasp math and even science, but the liberal arts don't always light a spark in their souls. I tell them, "It's so you can get the joke." I really say that. Everytime. Then I say, "Did you watch Family Guy last night? Did you get the jokes? Know how to fix that? Pay attention in English!" heh. <BR/><BR/>However, I one time remember making the most off-handed remark in a classroom and was most surprised when someone actually laughed out loud. A student asked, "What is that?" And I said, "It is green." Ask Jeremy if he remembers that. I do. :o)<BR/><BR/>Gives me hope that maybe some culture is still oozing forward in the flotsam of self-mediocrity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16635885.post-89330514827803606712008-11-20T11:49:00.000-06:002008-11-20T11:49:00.000-06:00Blue jeans are America. They are the ultimate exa...Blue jeans are America. They are the ultimate example of how we have this incomparable ability to take the wonderfully mundane, the gritty and the earthy, and make it something glittering and glamorous. Blue jeans are a representation of how we’ve taken the rough—the empty, raw continent that the Europeans first landed on—and have elevated it to a symbol of power and celebrity. America is the world’s celebrity, I think—the ones you see on the front pages of the tabloids. And I don’t mean either of these things in a necessarily good way, but mostly because I have an aversion to the concept of $500 jeans. <BR/><BR/>Blue jeans are the workman’s clothes. Blue jeans are the rough-and-tumble of grass stains and frayed hems and mud splattered from steel-toed boots and unpatched rips from barbed wire. They’re essential. They’re heartbeat and heartland. But they’re also Hollywood, star-studded, designer brand, the swirling patterns of gems that most people save for their jewellery. The world’s eye waits for the wrong move, waits to see where the paparazzi are going to strike next, and there the stars are, sometimes in their workman’s jeans, ratted and tattered, when they least expect to be photographed, when they’re just working in their gardens or walking their dogs, but when the world sets up a photo shoot—when they expect to be looked at, they’re right there in jeans that look the same—exactly the same—but the rips are factory-manufactured, the fades are from a chemical vat, and the same look’s been produced for a false front, like the plastered-on smiles and fake handshakes over a giant check.<BR/><BR/>Alright, you can tell I’m in poetry class, because I’m getting wordy. I think blue jeans are the representation of everything that America is—it’s the memory of the plough tilling hard sandy mid-America land while we’re relaxing along the cafes in Los Angeles. It’s something unavoidable, because everyone wears them, but no one thinks about how recently they’ve become popular, or pays attention to how many different degrees of ‘blue jeans’ there are. Blue jeans are our identity. Blue jeans are the companion to the I Love New York t-shirt we’ll all be wearing when we achieve the American Dream. Blue jeans are as casual or as formal as you like, as disastrously dirty or as catwalk clean as you can manage. Blue jeans are America.Saturdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01683438105485023974noreply@blogger.com