Finding a reliable barber is difficult, and its one of the three important service professionals (Doctor and Dentist being the other two) that are not very easy to replace. I use to get my haircut by these two Italian guys and an Irish woman in the neighborhood (off of 30th. Ave). They charged $20. Now I go to this Chinese guy from Indonesia who charges $10 with a two dollar tip. Not bad. His name is Flex. Don't ask.
A popular kid's practical joke goes disastrously awry. He is given a slap on the hand by the High School Dean, however a story is written up in the Student Newspaper about the incident and is posted online. His name gets black listed when he seeks a job and then when he realizes it may affect his college prospects. Faced with this fact he only has 6 months to correct his image and rehabilitate his name. To do this, he must perform good deeds in order to erase his defamed name from the Internet or not go to the College of his dreams.
Subplot #1- The HS Journalist who writes the article is a girl who hates what this kid (Johnny) has done. The victim also happens to be a in a circle of friends she runs with. However, she doesn't like him and kind of has a crush on Johnny. But for idealistic reasons won't give him a break by writing any good stories about him. Johnny finally realized that he needs to persuade her in order to make things right.
...As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy....
.... A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm)
Profound newsworthy events have taken up most of my attention for the past month. The story I am writing for this blog remains on the back burner while I read a book on physics to better understand these concepts. Currently, I have a one day a week internship at NYC City Council 22. I was able to walk in this past St. Patrick Day's Parade. It was an experience. Mayor Bloomberg and Cardinal Egan where a few yards away from me at times, its surreal when you meet famous people for the first time. Bloomberg isn't a tall man.
I am not going to comment on the events in Japan, the Middle East or Wisconsin, Michigan, or Ohio. News travels so fast these days the minute you would write about the above mentioned events it's already stale. I have also recently found out that I will not be attending CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in the fall. However, I will post on this later probably. I want to mention the nature and role of entertainment in modern life.
The author David Foster Wallace greatest achievement was writing a book called, "Infinite Jest." Its over, or close to 1,000 pages long with copious footnotes. I have tried to read this book three times and have failed at every attempt. When I first saw the book and pondered the title I thought it to be an important tome. Mike Judge's movie "Idiocracy" shares similar motifs on America's dystopic future.
The novel is a post-modern critique of modern society. However, it is set in the future, years are now sponsored by corporations (Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment), North America has become one nation, and the novels protagonists are the Incandenza family. Hal Incandenza, a tennis prodigy, who has at some point in the novel aquired some mysterious condition that makes him seem unintelligable in both speech and mind. Hal's father James Orin Incandenza Jr., who has by this time committed suicide by putting his head in the kitchen microwave, was the fonder of the tennis academy Hal attends, and a filmmaker. In the book one of James's accomplishments is a film referred to as the Samizdat or "The Entertainment" that the plot of the book revolves around. Like heroin once the film in viewed one becomes mesmerized and lifeless so the viewer's sole interest is watching the film (Wikipedia entry on Infinite Jest). For more on the book click the link, http://io9.com/#!5049700/david-foster-wallace-rip
As we move on into the internet age I believe the amount of screen time a person has the less independent and more easily influenced they become. Be it video games, television or on the computer surfing the world wide web. The fact that the internet is always on can be a problem if you don't know how to turn it off or manage it.
If you start the this video at the 6 minute mark you can see an illustrated lecture that touches upon what I mean. That the brain becomes hardwired for stimulation that occurs only in mediated (digital) formats. The analog way of life has become obsolete. Usually when I am bored I turn on the television and scroll through the guide to locate the entertainment choices I want to select. Currently, I find myself clicking the mouse of my macbook sometimes mindlessly. I go from article to article in a somewhat engaged state looking for the next webpage that will stimulate my mind in someway. This is a pattern of behavior without purpose and one to avoid but at the same time is a great waste of time. Which brings me back to the previous point....
