{"id":217,"date":"2008-05-01T22:18:05","date_gmt":"2008-05-02T03:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/05\/01\/thoughts-on-presntation-and-advice-concerning-bears\/"},"modified":"2008-05-01T22:18:40","modified_gmt":"2008-05-02T03:18:40","slug":"thoughts-on-presntation-and-advice-concerning-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/05\/01\/thoughts-on-presntation-and-advice-concerning-bears\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Presentation and advice concerning bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s interesting. My rehearsal process for presentations is generally similar to my writing process. I rewrite–or in this case, re-rehearse over and over–in such a way that I\u2019m comfortable with how things begin, but I run into problems as they progress. I had a great many ideas that I wanted to reconcile into an overall thesis, perhaps too many; it felt more scattered-brained than I\u2019d hoped. But I believe I conveyed the general ideas well enough.<\/font>And I was also charming. Humble too.<\/font>I spent the presentation trying to keep in mind the inherent connection between high and low-minded fare. After all, it\u2019s been said that the only difference between tragedy and comedy is the music. Show a scene where a young girl is stalked by a chainsaw-wielding maniac, throw in some menacing, ambient music, and you have a tense scene. Throw in calliope music and you have absurdity, a situation wherein the character fails to realize her nightmare is actually grist for the audience\u2019s sense of humor.<\/p>\n

This theory extends to composition as well. Consider one of the short stories presented in class, O\u2019 Flaherty\u2019s \u201cThe Sniper;\u201d it ends with the chilling comment \u201cThen the sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face,\u201d which, if taken for comedic effect, could almost seem like a punch line. How often has something similar happened in a soap opera (\u201cYou don\u2019t understand, Dirk! You can\u2019t kill Logan! He\u2019s your long-lost brother!\u201d)<\/p>\n

My point, I suppose, is that this stuff is not hard to write, nor are jokes of an oral tradition hard to convey, as long as they are approached from the proper standpoint. Though the emotional impact is often marginalized, it still exists at the fringes of the text, and can be surreptitiously approached in a way that avoids the author\u2019s initial hesitance to tackle dramatic storytelling–which any author, student or otherwise, always worries is beyond their capabilities as a writer. Indeed, they often find it beyond their capabilities as a reader of text, which is why they often consider deeper interpretation to be pointless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe Can Get Them for You Wholesale,\u201d superficially, is an elaborate comic set piece, but it\u2019s also a condemnation of the Costco-ification of American capitalism, and the marginalization of the human condition in a world where the ethics of right and wrong are replaced with fiscal responsibility (and possibility). In such a way, the final page is not just the culmination of a clever comic conceit, but also a memorable and discomfiting epiphany of sorts.<\/p>\n

My idea was that certain texts lend themselves to being experienced almost as a performance, most specifically those that have connections with oral folklore. And, considering many of the ideas we\u2019ve gone over in class up to this point–popcorn readings, interactive groups, reading texts as plays–it seemed like a good idea to choose a text which lent itself to those aspects.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, I should\u2019ve placed it within the context of those ideas: Blau\u2019s most specifically. I also failed to place the presentation within a theoretical context overall. Although there were shades of Graff in the presentation (combating indifference and self-doubt, in writing and interpretation), it was mostly general. Even still, I suppose I was pleased.<\/p>\n

This class has been enjoyable. I certainly hope I see those of you still enrolled around campus in the future. As for everyone else, Vaya con dios and all of that.<\/p>\n

Also, additional advice: never hug a bear; they don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s interesting. My rehearsal process for presentations is generally similar to my writing process. I rewrite–or in this case, re-rehearse over and over–in such a way that I\u2019m comfortable with how things begin, but I run into problems as they progress. I had a great many ideas that I wanted to reconcile into an overall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}