Critical Statement for the creative piece for P2

What I did for the creative piece for this project was create the unethical word that I chose to write about out of more unethical words. These words are insults that are shunned within today's society and are often never used in a casual manner because they are so insulting. Underneath the word gay I wrote the message, "Why are these terms morally wrong to saw when "gay" and "fag" are thrown around so loosely?" i thought this sent an interesting message that tied nicely with my project because of how loosely the insults of gay and fag are used today. It brings awareness to how even though we have created campaigns to stop these type of words, including a nation wide Stop the R Word campaign, there are still words that are ued wrongfully. I do not know if I would have wanted to change anything. I probably should have thrown in some color. Especially when forming the word gay, I could have done a rainbow spectrum across the three letters. But I still really enjoy this piece and think it complements my project very well.

Project 4 Analysis

I have such mixed feelings about this project. I enjoyed it. I had fun writing something funny. But I am always so critical on my humor that I never really thought what I wrote was super funny. It was a roller coaster of laughs and hates as I was typing it. I did not get any suggestions of how to make it better during the group workshop which was kind of expected since people don't really like to say what's bad about your project in your face. At least for this project. So when I went to revise it, I did change a few small things, nothing that really changed the paper significantly, and I even went and had my paper read by my roommate and a friend who goes to a different school. I always have the same problem with each of my projects. Revision. So for my complete global revision for this project I think I am going to try and just take my key jokes and put them in a comic. It is going to be hard, but it will make me discover what the key points of my sketch is and be able to only use the important parts. Maybe that's what I had to originally do for all my other projects instead of just doing minor changes. Sucks that it took me all semester to find that out.

A Time Traveling Blog Post

According to my calculations, this blog post will be posting on this website on the thirteenth of April in the year 2012. By then, I know, this post will be considered "late" but in reality this is probably the most important blog post to have ever been written. I have discovered a way to write a blog post and send into the future! Astounding I know. This blog post was supposed to be about relating an article to the ethnography that I will have already written, but I have been so distracted by discovering this time travel technology that I cannot remember how I am exactly supposed to write this. But I shall do my best. In my research I could not find an ethnography on improv theater, I could only found articles concerning improvised music for jazz. I did, however, I find this interesting article that discussed improv as a whole and even used quotes from Del Close on several occasions. What made the article interesting to me was how it talked about what makes a good improviser. Knowing the do's and don't's of improv. Ways to improve your improv and other fun facts concerning improv. It even mentioned how Chicago was and still is a main hub for improvised comedy which has a direct correlation to my own ethnography. It helped provide support for my original hypothesis that improv is effected by where the team comes from.

How is this Funny?

In this blog post I will be analyzing my own writing to determine what exactly makes it funny. I decided to write a script for a sketch or a video...not really sure. Could be done either way really. But what makes it funny, I guess, is that I used an improv game called typewriter to actually write the script out. So it starts off with the narrator coming in to sit down and write a book and introduces the scene and characters etc. But the humor comes from when the characters actually interact with the narrator. It's a fun convention that can be used in this type of game. But it gets kind of more humorous when the main character isn't going to take anymore of the narrator's shit and breaks free and...well I don't want to give it away. But it's funny how meta the sketch gets at the end.

This blog kinda sucked on my part. I don't like to toot my own horn about what's funny. Because I honestly didn't think this was the best sketch I could have written. Sure I'm proud of some parts, but I don't write funny that well. I can perform funny. Just not write it. I would rather someone else's opinion about what's funny on my piece. Thank god for peer reviewing.

A Humor Analysis

Since I can not do my original idea of taking the recorded improv shows and mashing together to create a 3-5 minute video of this weeks show, I am instead going to do this genre analysis on the sketch script that I will be completing for this project. I kind of forgot what genre analyses are about. Or I just cant think of how to analyze a script that I have no idea what it is going to be about yet. I guess that does not matter in the long run since this is an analysis on the genre as a whole not just specifically on my piece. Analyzing a sketch script...well it is going to need a few one liners. Some interesting characters. A good plot. Some type of twist, but not like a M. Night Shyamalan style twist. I need an actual good twist that's comedic too. The tricky part is going to fit all of this within the 3-5 material limit. Though, that's pretty much what a good improv scene is. So all I need to do is think of my own improv scene and write it out. And have drafts. I think a good sketch scene should include all of what I previously listed; good characters, plot, twist, one-liners, and also be honest. The characters in the scene need to be honest with their choices by staying true to what their character believes in. That sounded kinda sloppy but it makes sense to me.

Some Funny Ideas...

To be honest, this project is probably going to be the hardest and most painful project of all times. Writing humorously is not for everyone. Certainly not every single one of us in this class. I know I can't write good humor. I can be funny. Anyone can be funny when they're in a relaxed environment shootin' the shit with their friends, but writing and scripting out comedy is a whole new ball game. I am really hoping that I will be able to do what I have been meaning to talk to you about since yesterday which is turning a recording of one of my improv shows. I perform each week and for the past several week, the shows have been recorded with some scenes winding up on YouTube. So I am really hoping that I could compile a few of my best scenes and turn that in *fingers crossed*. If not, and the project has to actually be scripted then I guess I'll write a quick sketch? I have never been good at coming up with comedy on the spot, which is some sort of irony since I am on the improv team. But improvisational comedy is completely different than from the slap-stick comedy you get from your typical sketches, at least the improv I have been taught. To me, the truth is funny. If you tell an honest story then it'll be funny. Even if you are two absurd or random characters in a scene but having an honest conversation being honest to that character choice, you will have a funny scene. Granted yes sometimes that choice can make the scene pretty sad, but it's still a real scene that you would expect to see if you were observing those peoples lives. So if the whole video compilation doesn't work out, I'll write a sketch. Should be interesting.

Project 3 Project Analysis

I had a lot of fun doing this project. I got to research something that I already knew a lot about and I got to actually enjoy working on. My observation was watching a bunch of improv teams do their stuff for Pete sake. Improv has become one of my passions ever since I joined ISU's team earlier this team. It has become an essential part of my life. Doing improvisation has been a stress relief, a life lesson experience and a place where I have found the closest friends that I will ever have. To write a whole ethnography about something I care about so much just made this whole project a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable. Needless to say, even though I loved my topic there were some things I know I could have improved on. I wish I had been able to revise it more. I really wanted to add the explanation and differences between short and long form. Though not absolutely necessary, I think it would have cleared up some misconceptions throughout the paper. Also I should have figured out how to cite my interviews better. I gave credit in my paper but not in my reference page. C'est la vie though right? Good news is that I actually had a peer reviewer that gave me good notes and things to change in my paper. I am not sure if that means that my writing was not as good this time around or this person legitimately read and edited my paper. Either way it was a nice change up. It got me to actually catch some points in my paper that I wanted to change. Each paper so far has been about something I like and enjoy, which I am assuming is what everyone else does for their papers which I find interesting to see what some of their topics are because it allows me to indirectly get to know that person a little better, but something about writing about something I am so gosh darn passionate about made me feel more satisfied turning in this paper.

Creeper Notes

Observation Notes from 10 March 2012
Subject: Improv Teams
Location: College Improv Tournament at Mercury Theater, Chicago, Illinois
Purpose: To determine if the style of improv varies depending on where the team is from
Question: Since improv was practically born in Chicago, how has improv changed when practiced in other cities around the country?
Notes:

• Each team is performing their own form
• Almost all long form
• One team did short form
• Canada team has long form I've never seen
• Involves writing down monologues
• Used as idea generators
• Interesting use of "current" events
• Health care
• Depending on how far away team is from, possibly determines how many team members they bring
• Styles have same basic core just varying details
• All use one word suggestions (cept for Mafia)
• CIT has grown in the past 5 years
• The the amount of teams that were in nationals this were is the same number of total teams competing in CIT's first year
• Different size teams work the stage differently
• Different energy
• Use of stage
• Ideas used

Preliminary Ideas for Project the 3rd

To my understanding ethnography is stalking and creeping on a certain group of people and writing up a case study on that group. Sounds weird and wrong but as long as no one does anything illegal I think we'll be okay. So the first group that popped into my head when you were describing this project was to observe different improvisation teams. This Saturday I will be seeing the College Improv Tournament at Mercury Theatre where sixteen different college improv teams including ISU's very own Improv Mafia will be competing to earn the top place for this international competition. Having already seen a few different groups from regionals and studying with Improv Mafia, it is actually fairly obvious to tell the distinct differences in styles of each team. Some teams like to have more musical improv or more two person based scenes, or even just have a higher energy than other teams. Bottom line is that each team is different depending on their preferred style of improv which is also affected by what part of the country (or world) they are from. Chicago is the hub for improv. It is where improvisational comedy was created. So of course Chicago based teams all relate to each other in their own developed styles, however the cool thing about Nationals is that there will be teams from all over the country and even one team from Canada which brings in so many new styles of improv to watch and learn from. If this idea does not pan out, I am not too sure what I could do. I am going on spring break which narrows down the possibilities of groups I can observe. I guess if all else fails I can observe the group of people at the local grocery store or park. I would however feel way more creepy doing that than watching people perform at a comedy festival.

Project 2 Analysis

I kind of dropped the ball with the blogs for this project. It is real unfortunate that I did. I enjoy these blogs sometimes. They get me thinking and let my reader(s) know what I think of my various assignments. So this blog, as the title states, is supposed to be about what I thought of the project we just completed. The idea of the project I thought was really good. It made my peers open their eyes and look into why and how certain texts can have such a huge effect on a certain person or an entire culture. I think one of the problems with society today and probably throughout all of society is that people are ignorant. They never like to learn more about people and try to understand other cultures. I will admit that I am ignorant on a lot of things but the difference between me and the majority of society is that I am willing to learn. That whole saying that "ignorance is bliss" is a bunch of poppycock. The less you know, the less helpful to the world you are. It is always important to be informed to know what is going on so you are not left behind in your "blissful" world while the rest of us decide to pack up and move on.
I decided to use the word "gay" for my unethical text because it is a word today that most people use as a synonym for dumb and other insult words. Hearing this word used in the wrong context all the time and having several gay friends I already had a basic knowledge of how the word was being used unethically but I wanted to know more. I was amazed at how much I learned about the hardships of being homosexual in today's society. The high suicide rates, the origin of certain homosexual insults. Each disturbing fact I uncovered intrigued me even more and provided me a lot of research to write this paper with. The part that I did not understand and had trouble with this during this project was trying to be unbiased. I was confused as to how we were supposed to write an objective paper on something that we find to be subjectively unethical...but despite that obstacle I managed to write, what I and my peer editor believe, a pretty darn good paper. Obviously I noticed a little opinion in my writing but nothing can be 100% bias free, but I incorporated a lot of various facts and history of how "gay" is used unethically today. One of the troubles that I had again in this paper is revising. I know you said to do more research and that will help, but I could only find so much research without repeating myself. Like I said last time, I write papers to produce the final product. As a math major I am programmed to produce the final correct answer. If you need to revise your answer then you did it wrong. The combination of that thinking process and my peer reviewers not providing thorough notes, I find it very difficult to change anything about my paper. I even purposefully tried to sabotage myself so I could have something to revise which I wound up rewriting the Prop 8 paragraph near the end. I am not saying that the revision process is useless by any means, I just wish that I had someone who would truly revise my paper and try to tell me what I need to add or change or what sounds awkward so I can actually improve my writing. Other than that speed bump I think my paper went pretty well actually. My creative piece is probably my favorite part. I have to give credit to my roommate for helping my brainstorm about this idea. I feel like it probably could have used some color but with the materials I had available I think the absent of color actually makes it stand out more and adds to the message a little bit.

To be honest, I am not too sure what this blog is supposed to be about. I am supposed to be writing about what underlying ideologies/beliefs are in the text, what is and is not being valued...I have read it over several times but nothing is clicking. Maybe these questions are hard to answer due to the unethical text I decided to work with. The word "gay" does not really have any underlying ideologies or beliefs. It is used as an insult for a multitude of things from trying to hurt someone's personal life style to complaining about some mundane task. There have been for years homophobic and anti-homosexual people out there lashing out against a group of people that are no different from you or me. I guess you could say that the ideologies and/or beliefs behind this prejudice come from different types of groups of people. For example the (Neo) Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, Westboro Baptist Church all  had and have continued to hate the homosexuals either due to a crazed leader or because it is what the bible told them to do. What is not being valued is that no matter your sexual preference you are still a human being. It is the character of that human being that determines whether or not that person is "bad". I think that is what irritates me the most about this topic is because the ignorant homophobic bible pushing idiots cannot see that their ideals and beliefs are what making this world an awful place, not whether or not if a man wants to lie with another man or woman with woman. They can't take the time to open their eyes like their God wants them to and accept all of His creatures for who they are. Now I am no by any means a man of religion or faith but damn it all do I know more about the message of God than those assholes. Yeah sure the bible is up for anyone's interpretation and I know this is supposed to an objective project but this blog isn't objective. It's a blog. Anything goes in the internet as stated by rule #8 of the internet, "There are no real rules about posting." But I digress. So what was I actually supposed to answer? I'm not too sure but I think I touched base on what I was supposed to write about. "Gay" has turned from meaning happy to describing someones personal sexual preference to being tossed around as another insult as common as the word "the". Why? Probably because being gay is different and in society, especially America's, being different is bad and we shun the different. Also the bible told us to hate the gays. So we should definitely pick on them and hate them with as much passion as we can because that makes sense, right? There is absolutely nothing being valued behind the unethical use of gay. The world is full of hate and prejudice, it's a disgusting place where we have groups of people destroying people's lives who are just trying to be happy and find love where they can. But whenever I get infuriated by the ignorance of anti-homosexuality groups I always look down at my wristband that says, "It gets better...<3" and hope for the best.

Project 2 Preliminary Ideas

It's been a long weekend. Sorry I couldn't come up with a catchy title for this blog post like I normally do. Anyway I think that I am going to use the word "gay" for my unethical text. I know it is not a book or a document that made the whole world gasp but that one word causes a lot more harm then a lot of lengthy texts do today. I originally had the idea of doing the Jim Crow Laws and possibly throw in the three crows from the Disney classic Dumbo in there but after discussing with my roommate we both agreed that writing about the unethical use of the word "gay" in today's society would be way more important to write about. I think if I were to incorporate things like the original meaning of the word, the path of why and how the word became what it is today and included why it became an insult it would add a whole lot more meaning to my paper. Also, those are pretty interesting and easy topics to compile research on. I was also planning on bringing up Prop 8 in my paper because I feel like it is part of the cultural events attached to the unethical use of the word "gay".

Project 1 Analysis

As far as I know my project went fairly well. I did what I had to do. Followed instructions. Completed the assignment and wrote about two things I like to talk about; music and comics. My two biggest struggles that I had were getting started and writing for this genre. I never really had the motivation to get this assignment started. Yes I knew that I had to finish it and turn it all in on time, but I procrastinated until the very last second which may have affected my writing but without any motivation to begin this project I did not feel the need to begin until right before the due date. Also, writing reviews for me is actually a little more...not necessarily challenging since I can complete the task without trouble as long as I know about what I am reviewing but it is not the genre I prefer to write. Like I said in my first blog post I much rather to take a creative approach to my writing than having a ridged structure than I am supposed to follow. I used to work at my high school's radio station and had an on-air show with my brother one year and a solo one the next. On those shows the topics would normally revolve around comics and/or music. Music especially would be easy to talk about since you could play the song or artist you wanted to talk about and discuss the elements of the song of which your listeners just heard. However, with a review, you have no idea if your reader heard that album or song that you are trying to review. It is a crap shoot. Hopefully you write well enough to make the reader want to go out and listen to that album but it is a whole new dynamic when talking passionately about something your audience just heard as opposed to something they may or may not have heard recently. Maybe it is because I have become a better speaker than writer over my years of radio, debate team and theater that I have trouble with writing down my true feelings about something without being able to freely write my thoughts. But I digress, I think next project I should probably start my writing process a little earlier than I did with this one so I can hopefully write a better paper. Also, I think I am going to have either a different person read my paper or have multiple people read my project so I get more than a quick format fix suggestion from my peer review. If I'm supposed to reach a regional level of revision I am going to need to have someone say there are more things wrong than just the format for a paper that I pretentiously believe to be pretty much perfect.

Reviewception

This is a blog entry comparing the review styles of an album review done by the online version of Rolling Stone magazine and a comic book review done by Amazon.com. Essentially my task is to do a review of two reviews comparing how they review and what conventions they use in their reviews. The two sites have very different styles which implements a variable that forces you to look at one review as more reliable than the other. Rolling Stone magazine has been reviewing all types of music since 1967 which, to me, makes them a lot more credible than Joshua Koppel from Chicago throwing in his two cents who has been a member since June. Despite the differences, there are a few similarities between each review. For example, both Rolling Stone and Amazon provide all of the essential information about the item you are reading about such as artist/author, publisher/producer, etc. Each review also provides a star rating for that simple quick check to see if it is even bother reading the review. A brief description about both items is given in each of the reviews, however, due to the more professionalism of Rolling Stone, their description goes into greater detail and provides a lot more background for that album. Rolling Stone is tailored to people who are really interested in the music that they listen to and want to know every last bit of information about. Their articles provide a great description of the style of the album comparing it to previous albums by the same artist as well as albums of similar artists. They use a fairly formal tone in their writing unlike Amazon which is always a case by case scenario for their writing style. All in all, I would definitely rely more on Rolling Stone for an album review, however, if you were just looking for a simple customer review, Amazon would be the place to go before thinking of purchasing a certain item.

Brainwashing. I mean Brainstorming.

I am going to review the newest Black Keys album "El Camino" for part of this project. I am most likely going to review this album in the form of a Rolling Stones article. I want to review "El Camino" because the Black Keys are one of my top three favorite bands (the other two being the White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Also, I would like to tell my peers of the great sound that this band can produce. They have grown so much musically and listening to them is quite an experience. My second review will be on a graphic novel. I'm not sure which one yet. It's either going to be Watchmen, Kingdom Come or Superman: Red Son. Each of those comics were brilliant works of art and story telling. I have been a big fan of comics for several years and a self-proclaimed nerd my entire life. I plan on writing this review in the style of a book review. Not sure the exact style yet. I want something greater than an Amazon review but nothing too prestigious. But I know that I would be able to talk about the story, the art, the character development and the symbolism behind each of these graphic novels with great depth. They are some of the greatest comics I have ever read.

A Brief History of Writing: The Devin Prior Story

I learned how to write sometime before kindergarten. It began with the ABC's and grew to words, then sentences and evolved to forming complex sentences. In the first grade I had to write a weekly paragraph of what I did that week or what I had planned on doing. Soon those paragraphs turned into pages and eventually into papers. Throughout elementary school and most of middle school a standard paper was a basic five paragraph format. My writing really developed in seventh and eighth grade when in order to receive an A we had to write two more of whatever was required (i.e. if there was a five paragraph paper due we needed to have seven in order to receive the A otherwise we would get a C for doing the average work). Each semester we were assigned five papers to write, each one on a different topic and a different genre. Writing all of those papers and having them edited by my teacher really showed me what I needed to do in order to improve my writing. Unfortunately in high school I did not give as much attention to my writing as I would have liked to. There were not many assignments that involved writing in the classes that I selected and were placed in and if there was, the assignment was usually a basic research or informational paper that required zero creativity which I found to be quite boring. I always tried to add in my own style for these informational papers which unfortunately usually caused a deduction in my grade. My favorite style of writing is not having one. Having a free flow of thoughts scratched out onto a piece of paper, writing whatever is on your mind, creating a reality that exists solely in your head and describing the beauty or horribleness of that world through the use of your words making the reader explore your inner thoughts; That, to me, is the best type of writing. A true expression of what the writer is thinking. Because when you pick up a pen and paper and just sit down and begin to write whatever comes to your mind that is the truest form of writing.