Friends, or the people who ruined facebook

I originally signed up on facebook because it seemed a clever little time-suck. Over time, I've kept it because it provides a useful way for me to keep up with friends/family, and it still helps me kill time. I'm generally not one to post inflammatory statuses, or to make critical comments (I don't do it nearly as much as I could). But recently, I've been utterly disgusted by it.

It started last month, when I saw the "change your profile pic to a cartoon" thing start popping up on friends' statuses. The idea was that by changing your pic to some cartoon from your youth, you were helping in the fight against child abuse. This bothered me for a few reasons. First, the ridiculous idea that changing your picture to a cartoon will, by itself, raise awareness of child abuse. Second, the meme's obvious lack of connection to any organization, which is likely because it didn't begin as any kind of movement, but just someone asking their friends to change their profile pictures for no reason, like congress passing a boring bill by attaching it to something noone can disagree with. The most important reason it irked me, is that it caught on among my friends very quickly, which suggests that they didn't think the whole thing through as thoroughly or as quickly as I did. In the long run, I suppose that this was not an entirely unexpected course of action, as I tend to take a more critical approach to life than most people, but still it was just so silly, that it made me reevaluate the nature of facebook, and my relationship with it.

Facebook is by nature, a place for people to show you who they are, with all that that entails. If a person is somewhat private, then their profile will be somewhat sparse. Now, I have never been a normal person. I hold on to somewhat obscure interests, I tend to analyze things long past the point where most people stop, and because of this I tend to expect people to be more accountable for their actions than they are usually willing to be. So, I am newly aware that my friends are not like me for the most part, and that Facebook is not made for me. I'm very measured in my speech, and I don't deign to think that my opinion is of great portent to anyone, (strange, since I have a blog) so I am planning to simply use it less in favor of Twitter, a place where I can rain down my ponderings on an expanding darkness of cyberspace. I wish there was a better way to wrap that all up but it's winter break and I don't write well when I don't have school, so that is all.

The impressive e.e. cummings

One of the things I really like about poetry is that it allows you to use words in a way that shouldn't make sense. By nature, this is a huge departure from my incredibly logical brain, so I occasionally have a considerable bit of difficulty with the practice of it. However, I still love to read it, (which is probably one of the reasons I didn't mind reading the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury, one of the most bizarre snippets of writing on the planet) which is why I thoroughly enjoy e.e. cummings(for the uninitiated, the name is not supposed to be capitalized). He had a way of playing with language that I find amazing, because he put words together that shouldn't logically belong and made them make sense in my head. In a way, his writing serves as a clinic on how the structure of a poem is as important as the diction, because his line breaks add to the message as does his syntax, (or lack thereof). Anyway, enough of my useless jawing about how awesome he was, see for yourself:

ITEM

this man is o so

Waiter  

this;woman is

please shut that

the pout And affectionate leer

interminable pyramidal, napkins

(this man is oh so tired of this

a door opens by itself

woman.)they so to speak were in

Love once?

now

                                           her mouth opens too far

and:she attacks her Lobster without

feet mingle under the

mercy.

                                              (exit the hors d'oeuvres)

Now, I have my own interpretation of this whole thing, but I would like to hear what you guys think this means. Don't worry, it's not an assignment, I just wanna know what you think.

Well Written books, with Pictures!

I recently stated that some of the best writing I have ever read was in comic books. I keep having to make the point that I am an English major (and a pretty good one, if my work so far is any indication), and here it should serve to reinforce the point that I know what good writing looks like. So as I go through my list of books on ComicRack (my digital reader of choice), I've decided to make a short list of some of the best writing I've ever read, comic-wise, in no particular order, (this is not a list of my favorite comics, but a list of the ones I think are the best written):

Cover of Watchmen

• Watchmen, Alan Moore: I'll go ahead and explain the convention here of only naming the writer of the book, since I'm not making a list of most brilliant artwork in a book (though Dave Gibbons is no slouch here). Anyway, I am obviously not the first person to say Watchmen is awesome, and I won't be the last. This is largely thanks to an abundance of absolutely awesome writing, with Moore showing off his versatility by bringing together a world of vastly different characters, as well as an astonishing amount of background info about the world they live in. I never got to read it in its initial serial form, as I was two when it was finished, but it was one of the first graphic novels I added to my bookshelf, and I read the Dr. Manhattan parts repeatedly when I first got it, because it was so poetic. Every now and then I still reread it, and I never get tired. Everyone should read this book, partially because it is basically a genre-defining work, but mostly because it, like Shakespeare, or a Taco Bell Chalupa, is exactly as good as advertised
  
  
  
  
  Cover of Old Man's Cave (Bone, Book 6)
• Bone, Jeff Smith: This is here for very different reasons, because there aren't as many singularly eloquent speeches here, but there is a clear sense that Smith knows exactly what he wants to do with this story, which counts for a lot. In the technical sense, the tone of the story is perfect, and it stays that way throughout. If I were to pick a favorite part, it would have to be Book 6: Old Man's Cave, largely because I looked for it in stores and online for well over three years, and could not find it until 2007, (that volume was released in 1999), when I bought the whole thing in one volume. It was totally worth it. 

Image via Wikipedia

• Planetary, Warren Ellis: Because Warren Ellis is clearly a serial genius and John Cassaday is his shape-shifting accomplice, Planetary is awesome. The story of Planetary is not entirely new, as the whole series is an homage to hero stories of the past, but a story doesn't have to be new to be great, and Ellis' strength in my opinion, is his unbelievably clever sci-fi writing, which seems to be more along the lines of Asimov, than DC. Of particular note for me are issues #12 and 26, when awesomeness is afoot.
Image via Wikipedia
• The Sandman, Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman = win. I don't know how to properly explain how good these books are, they are not only filled with haunting images(in a good way), but also some of the most intellectually challenging writing I have ever seen. Plus, there is an amazing amount of just plain beautiful verbiage, in every issue. For a best of the best, I'd go with Brief Lives, in which "we all know everything, we just pretend to ourselves that we don't to make our lives bearable"

Cover of The Ultimates Vol. 1: Super-Human
• Ultimates, Mark Millar: Up until this point, Marvel has been taking a serious beating on this list, since 3 of the previous entries are DC properties. However, I will go on record as saying that for the main brand, Marvel has much stronger writing. The Ultimates are a great example of this, with the ability to take these heroes(they're the Avengers, in case you didn't know) and make them real, socially relevant people. I cannot find the exact number of the issue I wanted to highlight, as blogger appears to make my computer really slow, but there is an issue in which Nick Fury is the focus, which I think is emblematic of the series: very strong characterization, and plot twists.