I am peer reviewing a colleague's draft...

My first reaction is that I know this place, and it will be good to see how another person views this place that I have also visited.

I've been thinking about my own draft...

I have to tell you that I feel pretty good about it. I think with a little bit of restructuring it could be a good piece. My style is there, but certain sentences may have to be cut or reordered.

A sentence starts...

A sentence starts out like a nascent garage band. They begin with hope and optimism. Almost all of them end in failure. The ones that don't get more credit than they should for parroting ideas that are not their own. On strikingly rare occasions, a sentence can be simultaneously original and successful.

If these walls could talk

Michael Wesch's video on a stagnant education system is trying to signify how people have not changed education theory since the mid-1800s. The classroom represents a box of limited materials and resources, and the students in this box voice their feelings on a world that they believe is unfair or nearly impossible to    wade through. Wesch is arguing for a change in system and in scene, claiming that proper use of technology in an educational forum will make for a class that is livelier and more focused.

Magazine Ipad Child

The remediation of the world is proven through the child's misunderstanding and confusion regarding the iPad and the magazine. Her recognition of the iPad is distorted the moment she touches the magazine, and she is unable to separate the two. The remediation is interesting considering the actual current transfer that is occurring between print and digital communication. The rhetoric here is that even a child can try to combine these two different media into one, a process that is actually happening due to remediation.

My Audience

My audience is a grandfather. Too kind and gentle to impart true criticism, they burst with platitudes and linger lightly on correction. My audience dotes on me like a prized grandson who has a passable talent for the piano, a talent through which the proud grandfather can easily imagine a Mozart, and everyone else sees an 11-year old child struggling to play an arpeggio. 

Citizens Bank Park

“From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.” -“Casey At the Bat”

I have been drowning in a world of baseball since my earliest youth, anchored to the bottom of a diamond-shaped lake and perfectly unwilling to save myself from inundation. The most accurate and insightful picture that exists from my childhood is a shot of me, cheerfully rotund and garbed in a pair of ludicrous Red Sox suspenders, beaming into the camera with the twinkly-eyed look of smug self-awareness. I am a baseball fan, and I always have been. I helped teach myself to read by scrutinizing the sports page in The Philadelphia Inquirer and discovering the subtle phonetic intricacies that link “chi” and Chicago.  At the age of seven I quit soccer to focus on my other sports in an unorthodox way-by claiming “I ain’t no Bo Jackson” and refusing to speak any more on the subject. Many children grow out of this obsessive phase and move on in life. I have not. Instead, I have evolved, trading the Inquirer for fangraphs.com, and Bo Jackson for advanced sabermetrics. My burgeoning knowledge of the sport has lent me the terrible weapon of condescension and I wield it mercilessly. A Bucks County native, I am the persistent pilgrim to Citizens Bank Park, a polished jewel that holds in its belly many viruses, a collective plague that distributes baseball folly and arrogance in equally unappetizing servings.  

The trek from my residence in Newtown, Pennsylvania to the stadium in Philadelphia is often marred by the beautifully reckless traffic that pockmarks all large cities, and my friend’s Honda Odyssey is not especially notorious for its remarkable speed and acceleration. This minor motoring inconvenience is never a problem; it allows more time for the discussion of starting pitchers, batting averages, and win streaks. Talk about baseball is the most engaging distraction I know, and somehow, through the twisting labyrinth of our own dialogue, we always end up at the ballpark.

Citizens Bank Park is a gorgeous place, and stands up to the vicious judgment of the harshest ballpark aficionados. It has good seating, a delightfully convenient layout, and beautiful design. The home of the Phillies is the kind of building that baseball owners salivate over. There is really only one problem with this picturesque place, and that is the fans. Before I continue I would like to declare that most fans of any team are good ones, and it is the small minority that gives certain devotees a bad name. It just so happens that this minority in Philly is not so small and particularly outspoken. Loudmouth boors, they clap when opposing players are injured and intentionally vomit on enthusiasts of the Phillies’ opponent. The behavior of this cell of zealots can walk the precarious line between the offensive and the absurd. Driven by a potent concoction of alcohol and stupidity, this contingent of fans takes a particular and foolhardy delight in singling me out as a Red Sox fan and informing me of the various defects of my team, manhood, sexual orientation, and intellect. I am a thick-skinned individual who can take insults, however, slander upon my ballclub is an intolerable sin. I turn around, flip the tables and spoon-feed my foes a knife-sharp dissertation that explains, through statistical and visual evidence, why their brotherly beloved team only merits a fork being stuck in them. Pugnaciously pugilistic disagreements aside, most people do not dog me for being a Sox fan, and the stadium and the sport is worth any amount of verbal barking.

A baseball park can be many things: a cage of unreasonably ardent animals, a massive communal picnic, a cathedral. It has been all of these for me. However, it always has been, most importantly, a place to see baseball, and for this I am thankful.

Citizens Bank Park is not...

Citizens Bank Park is not the slumbering sea. It is an irrational, hectic, heckling ground of fans all desperately attempting to closely emulate their primate ancestors. It trembles and quakes with varying tremors of rage and delight, shaking with fury or gleefully jubilant. Founded on the rock hard core of unshakable zealotry, the park is a monolith to fans of the home team and a tomb to the opponent.

Citizens Bank Park Metaphor List

Citizens Bank Park is not like the Garden of Eden.
It's not a home away from home.
It's not an indeterminate Hell.
It's not a place where a customer can expect realistically priced sustenance.
It's neither a faraway land nor a distant harbor.
It's not a sea of tranquility.
It's not a prison.
It's not the tip of the iceberg.

Citizens Bank Park might be like a temple.
It could be a zoo.
It could be a picnic.
It could be a memory.
It is a ballpark. That's the important thing.

Home is Like...

Home is like, a place where you can go and get attacked by your ferocious, 15-lb dog, and where your own bed feels damn good after time in a dorm.

Prezi Argument on the Evolution of Technology

I liked the use of quotes, it allows the presentation to strengthen its argument with many outside sources. It also has a nice background, which lends itself to a more viewable experience. The argument was well structured and developed.

Taylor Mali Analysis

Taylor Mali's poem regarding the decay of authoritative declarations in the English language is a smart and biting parody that nips at the heels of a society that is probably too cool for its own good. This poem is presented through two different forms of media- one video of him standing in front of an audience, and an interesting presentation in which there was only audio and text from Mali's poem imposed on the screen. The dynamic video of Mali is strong because it shows an animated speaker elaborating on a subject he cares about, an interactive audience that almost serves as a laugh track, and Mos Def. A person can never go wrong with a little bit of Mighty Mos in his or her life. The textual presentation has power through the actual visual conjuring of words, where the text serves to hammer in the main points of Mali's argument in a refreshing way. I think the meaning is emphasized and has more punch with the textual presentation of the material.