Tag: College Days

Life

College Class Ideas

Posted on by Desmond White

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LITERATURE CS 15 Section 1:

“Talkin About My iGeneration”

The Millennial generation will be fully explored in this course focusing on how art & poetry is fabricated through the Internet and other media technologies. Exercises will include remixing youtube videos to create spontaneous narrative, concocting words for Urban Dictionary, and generating new memes. Every student is expected to create and utilize their own blog and twitter accounts.

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LITERATURE CS 16 Section 2:

“Mona Lisa in the Closet”

I don’t really know what this class will be about. But it sounds awesome.

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LITERATURE CS 8 Section 1:

“A Cough of Kafka”

Using letters as a mode of writing.

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LITERATURE CS 12 Section 5:

“Censorship in Poetry: Behind the Veil”

What does crossing out a word do to a poem? Unfortunately, censorship decisions can hinge on contemporary values of morality, proper literature, and value. This course will focus on didactic theories of “thou-shalt-not write such,” including a private eye examination of famous rough drafts and their revisions due to taboo affairs.

Required Reading

  • Plato’s Republic

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LITERATURE CS 5 Section 1.333:

“The Class That Jumped the Shark”

An Insider Look at troupes, cliches, story patterns, and other tricks of the trade. Although “the cliche” has recieved a negative connotation in today’s scholarship (for good reason!), the art of recycling literary themes, motifs, and patterns remains a useful tool to the useful writer. This course hates to break it to you, but tropes aren’t all bad. And knowing about them doesn’t cheapen the industry.

Required Reading

  • Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces
  • Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat!
  • TV Tropes

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LITERATURE CS 4 Section 007:

“Plastered with Plath”

Alternative Course Title: Shots to Sylvia, then More Shots!

We’ll get drunk and read our favorite female authors.

Required Reading:

  • Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice
  • Edna Ferber’s So Big
  • Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
  • Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

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LITERATURE CS 5 AREA 51:

“Writing For Hustler Magazine”

It’s in the course title.

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LITERATURE CS 1 Section 34:

“March of the Witch Hunters”

This course will conduct an inquisitive inquiry into the magical world of witches and wizardry. First, we’ll begin with Medea, who’s nature was “more bestial than Scylla, the Tuscan monster.” Then we’ll examine St. Anthony of the Desert, the Inquisition, the New England Trials of 1690, and folk culture shamanism. Finally, our course will conduct a search for modern-day spell books and attempt its own magical productions. Is witchery trickery or heresy? Illusion or reality? We’ll find out!

Required Reading:

  • Heinrich Institoris’ Malleus Maleficarum
  • Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens
  • Paul Huson’s Mastering Witchcraft
  • Dungeons & Dragons’ Spellbook Compendium
Life

Comic Con 2010

Posted on by Desmond White

As I watched from afar, Gandalf stood before the entrance to Comic-Con, stuck his staff defiantly into the ground, and shouted “Thou Shalt Not Past!” The on-coming nerds passed him anyway and he dropped his head crestfallen. Later, a Jedi shouted “Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope!” before being consumed by mobs of bag-toting zombies.

“Oh heinous dodecahedron gods,” a geek exclaimed. “We’re at Comic-Con.”

Comic-Con indeed. How awesome art thou Comic-Con? Awesomer than your Mom, doth Comic-Con reply. Never have I seen so many nerds, mega-nerds, hunchbacks and nerds. To describe it as nerd mecca doesn’t do it justice. Nerdvana? The Nerdiverse? Anyone who’s anybody to anyone to anything in geekistory was accounted for this sunny San Diego weekend… even the dead guys. It was nerdageddon.

To spoil some spoilers: Joss Wheldon’s directing The Avengers (woot!), Mark Ruffalo is Hulk, and they’re still letting M. Night Shyamalan make movies…? Plus Tron 2, Die Hard 5 (with Willis), Brad Pitt in World War Z, another Haunted Mansion and another Resident Evil (meh…), Cowboys & Aliens (which I’ve been anticipating 4-forevs) and The Walking Dead as a TV Show are all in our immediate drooling future.

I wanted to visit the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World showcase, but my comic companion, dressed as Gideon from Scott Pilgrim and flirting with all the purple-haired chicks with hammers, insisted I read the damn books first. Then I ran into Matthew Fox and Daniel Dae Kim from LOST, and the entire cast of FRINGE, and the creators of The Venture Bro’s (including Patrick “Brock Samson” Warburton), and didn’t mind missing out.

But the worst part “Highlight of the Convention!” was a Webcomics Lightning Round, during which Scott Kurtz (PvP), Robert Khoo (the third guy from Penny Arcade; yes, there’s a third guy), and Brad Guigar (Evil, Inc) discussed furries. I mean Webcomics. Webcomics. The Q&A focused on creative and business aspects in Webcomic design. Amidst the awesomeness, some bearded ass in Sith robes made an off-hand comment during the sesh that the crowd was only there for a subsequent LOST panel, which Scott Kurtz turned into a world of hurt for the poor Sith bastard.

Kurtz: Jack dies in the bamboo field by the freaking dog!

Stupid Darth Asshole: Yeah, but uh… my question is-

Kurtz: By the way, the Dharma Initiative? Completely FUCKING irrelevant.

Afterwards, I picked up How to Make Webcomic, had all the authors sign it (suhweet), and split. Comic-Con was MANacular, my weekend was great, and – oh, whoa, whooooa, before I sign off, I need to mention one last little diddy: Tessa Stone’s Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name. I found her paranormal comedy (what she calls “sugarcoated horror”) right before Comic-Con, was deeply entertained, then ran into her in the Webcomic Artists’ section. Let’s just say she’s totally awesome.

Life

SBCE Proposal—The Forum, a Traditional Speakeasy

Posted on by Desmond White

Epicurus and Plato

Plato’s Academy imagined education as serving man in one crucial way: in preparing one’s occupation to society. His systematic approach did a lot of things right. Adapting to society is generally advantageous to one’s survival, and an education that helps you learn to adapt is only logical. However, Plato was also missing one crucial aspect of social enculturation – and that’s that society needs life to exist, while life doesn’t need society at all.

Where Plato’s Academy was architecture, Epicurus’ s Garden was a landscape. Epicurus, a Greek philosopher who set up his own school outside Athens, came up with an egalitarian philosophy to counter Plato. He believed in learning for the pleasure of knowledge, not as a means to social success. Education could be both robustly intellectual and hedonistically gratifying. Post-modern attempts at re-creating Epicurus’ Garden have been remarkably successful, such as the Universite Populaire in Caen, France. Apparently the contemporary student doesn’t have to be stuck in academic rigor mortis to become stalwart intelligentsia…

The Forum, or the Proposal Stage

My proposal would be an educational forum dedicated to the Epicurean ideal context for dialogue. This forum would be a free event, open to the entire Santa Barbara proletariat (and aristocracy), and would be delivered from a performance stage far removed from the University campus. The emphasis would be on erudition through passion, and not as compulsory prerequisites to life.

The Forum would be split into two parts: a series and a final “lecture symposium.” The Series will be held every Wednesday night at 8 PM at 6504 Madrid Rd, Apt H, Isla Vista, and will discuss dialectic subject material to be determined by inquisitive participants. These meetings will open dialogue on philosophy, psychology, art, and any other subject of concrete or abstract design; backed-up by open discussion of ideas and themes. Basically, this half of The Forum will model Plato’s Academy, with problems posed and contemplated during weekly congregation.

The second part of The Forum, during the 8th week of Spring Quarter, will be a symposium, or short lecture series (for a better perspective, look at TED), given by professors, grad students, and undergraduate instructors who have something to contribute that is of great personal interest to them. I imagine the event lasting an hour, with lectures preceding an introduction to The Symposium (delivered by myself) during which I will address the debate more deeply. The Symposium lectures will be timed at about fifteen minutes each, with 5-10 minute “open mics” every three talks, during which audience members can come up on-stage and share something that they enjoy.

Examples of topics would be  “neuroplasticity” and how the philosophy of psychology is being revolutionized; or Graphic Novels as Art, not a cheap entertainment; or the knack for mural-making on the sides of houses in Isla Vista. Perhaps Kink University: Fetish Fellowship, our resident Fetish club, will do a lecture on safety in sexual fetishes.

The point of The Forum will be to create a “non-academic” event dedicated to the pursuit of instruction and personal learning. We as human beings are curiously mad about the world around us – here’s our opportunity to explore the obscure, to break free from the zeals of convention and discover the avocational, to find passion through intellectual pursuit. Here is our opportunity to unite thousands of years of education systems into the peaceful cohesion of two competing Greek ideologies.

Life

Radio PSA

Posted on by Desmond White

The latest on CPR – Reptoids! Nazis in Antartica! Walt Disney’s nipples! Less! With a guest interview from Dr. Riki Erikson, who has a ph.D in serial  killography killology. How can you prevent the  scaling Reptoid Invasion? What does the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, the Roman Catholic Church, the Trilateral Commission, Geico Insurance, and that homeless person at the bus stop have in common? (Hint: it’s ghosts). Tune in every Thursday afternoon from 6:30 to 8 PM at KJUC 880/770 AM! You might just survive the Rumbapocalypse.

Life

In an effort to keep a lecturer at UCSB, we presented and recited this scroll to the Dean of Creative Studies

Posted on by Desmond White

To the Good Queen’s Kingdom of Creative Studies:

Us groundlings have been waiting. We go to class in good faith; we sit on the lawn and watch the trees grow – in good faith. We sit on the OLT benches, burning cigarettes, compose. We wield plastic hammers at the gods of poetry – in good faith. We’re waiting for the CCS trees to scrape the sky, but in the meantime, we’ve learned to read–and we’ve cultivated intellectual fleas that quiz us incessantly as we bathe in the dust. We’ve watched our rags unravel in the scorched late afternoon sun – until now, this moment, when the prayers we never knew we had were answered. All this time we’ve had our ears pressed to the ground, and finally, we heard the news:

THERE IS A VACANCY IN THE CCS FACULTY

Us groundlings have a proposition.

In the name of Love–for knowledge, literature, and the dear and wonderful college as a whole–we express our joy and gratitude to Rob Wallace–a bright new liberating philosophical king of the classroom–and nominate him to fill the void.

Rob is a rare and noble spirit. He is so intent, so solid, so dedicated to the protection and integrity of the mind–as well as that which lies beyond. To Us groundlings, it seems as if many scholars these days have disembodied heads–their love for knowledge is for knowledge alone and serves little purpose in the world. They’re archaeologists so obsessed with cobwebs that they’ve forgotten about the spider which hangs above them.

Rob, on the other hand, is a living musician, and he loves spiders. He strums on cobwebs as ancient as any lyre, and has the ability to bring facts and history back to life. With Wallace, the classroom is not just a classroom—it’s a divine theatre that contains the whole world–past, present, and future. The classroom is an image of eternity where Rob can play Orpheus and we his inspired Cerebus!

Rob Wallace is a priceless treasure. Rob Wallace is an IED, an improvised explosive device, except instead of exploding soldiers and curious children – he implodes our minds with the secrets of the cosmos. Rob Wallace isn’t a spark, he’s the Big Bang. When Rob dies, valkyrie will fight over his corpse. Three days later when Rob brings himself back to life; we will tremble in fear and awe.

And honestly, Rob Wallace, our valiant Dao troubadour, forges struggling artists into struggling heroes. His criticism unites two areas of inquiry that traditionally necessitate each other, that of scholastic euphoria and artistic novelty. With Rob, Art and Academia finally consummate their awkward sexual tension and engage in some serious improvised baby-making.

Nor does Rob consider the production of art to be limited to mercantilism –he treats artistic creativity, awareness, engagement, and transformation as a lifestyle. Rob Wallace utilizes CCS as a platform from which Us Groundlings develop the ability to creatively engage with the world–to think for ourselves, to question what is taken for granted and blindly accepted by many, to wonder what we might do with our lives instead of what we should, to live more fully. In this way, Rob would be MANificent as a CCS professor. From putting on class performances to after-hours film screenings to independent studies courses to his own concerts at the Biko House in IV and Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara – he’s the most dynamic and yet complete creative writing guru we know.

But we are just simple groundlings. All we can do is say that we love Rob and that he would be a wonderful addition and asset to CCS. Please consider!

Thank you,

Seth J. Miller

Desmond White

Life

Alternative Teaching Model, i.e. Video Games

Posted on by Desmond White

Under the Prussian Model, schooling becomes a choking prose; the ring of the bell its punctuation.

A Quotation for Consideration

Professor Michael Merzenich, who works at the University of California, San Francisco, said that “our brains are vastly different, in fine detail, from the brains of our ancestors… In each stage of cultural development… the average human had to learn complex new skills and abilities that all involve massive brain change… Each one of us can actually learn an incredible elaborate set of ancestrally developed skills and abilities in our lifetimes, in a sense generating a re-creation of this history of cultural evolution via brain plasticity” (Doidge).

In essence, culture changes the way we think.

Historical Context

Before I propose an alternative teaching method, let’s take a brief look at the education system implemented into schools today. What we have here in the United States is what is called the “Prussian Model of Schooling” which includes mandatory courses, a national grading system, and specific instruction necessities for all students and teachers. This education model dates all the way back to the Kingdom of Prussia and its 18th Century curriculum Volksschule.

When looking at Middle and High school, we find that education has become categorized learning separated by brief bouts of “free period” (typically approximately five minutes in length, as students transition from one classroom to the next). In college we have the same, except these “free periods” continue even longer, at times lasting up to several hours.

However, in this past century we’ve seen the rise of a technological implementation in which we, as human beings, can engage for hours without interruption. That technology? Video games.

Reform, the Proposal Stage

We don’t live in the Pleistocene Age anymore. Nor are we 18th Century Prussians. The Millennials, as we’ve been nick’d by the media, are an impatient and visually-impressed zeitgeist generation. Education as lecturer and pupils encaged inside four classrooms walls is sentimental at best. New blood clamors for a new body and we must deliver. Thus, my application of video games.

Specifically, video games that have been tailored to educate with sequential precision, “play world” architecture, and yet inestimable developments of critical thinking. Games should be capricious enough to avoid proscribed thinking patterns. What we’re looking for is “neuroplastic” stepping stones that allow children to fully articulate internal disorder into both individual and societal remuneration.

That means the consequences of failure will be gentle, while “in-game” rewards will reimburse hard-work with virtual pleasures. Or will they? As this is all theoretical with very little exploration of subject matter, even conceptions of this proposal’s project is limited to preconceived philosophy on video game potential for tutorage.

Source

Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself. Penguin Books: New York City, 2007.

Life

Conspiracies Peoples Report

Posted on by Desmond White

YO YO! I now have a radio show broadcasting every Thursday afternoon from 6:30 to 8 PM at KJUC 880/770 AM from local Santa Barbara radio channel KCSB 91.9. It’s going to be the shizrocks so get your notebook out and tune in. While other shows are saturating themselves in Indie bands and alternative rock, we’ll be exploring intriguing topics like MAN’S PLACE IN THE COSMOS!

CPR, or Conspiracies Peoples Report, is dedicated to descending into madness. Like a snake eating its own tail, humies preoccupy themselves in the consumption of resources and Brave New World levels of leisure that they’ve ignored the signs of our super-weird, super-mutual destruction. The natural order is helter skelter.

Our show will investigate a variety of topics pertaining to you, the cosmonaut, including: Graphic Novels, life philosophies, life sophistries, OST, Spoken Word, the supernatural, the paranormal, Cracked.com, non sequitur humor, fish, the superhorny, magical realism, conspiracies, religion, religious conspiracies, conspiratorial religions, private detective fiction from the 20-30s, cryptozoology, fringe science, anime & manga, westerns & cowboys, stand up comedy (and sit down tragedy), Crime Mystery Theatre, science fiction, interesting histories, obscure books, and brain-washing celebrities (like Lady Gag… or is it Godga?).

Our musical accompaniment will be soundtracks to our favorite TV shows, with an emphasis on Science Fiction, Spy Espionage, and Detective Drama (i.e. The Prisoner, The Wild Wild West, 3rd Rock from the Sun, The X-Files, Fringe, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Starsky & Hutch, McMillan & Wife, etc). Plus we’ll include music pertaining to the supernatural, music pertaining to nerd culture, and music we really, really, really like. Think of this as kaleidoscopic arm-swinging insubordinate wit to twit.

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