Language Hearts
By ice rivers
Can't Shake Off English Class
- 1216 reads
Regarding Mr. Fate and Trish

Lucien Fate, our favorite teacher Had a spirit covered with rust. An overeducated creature, Who lorded over high school middle crust. Fate believed...
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- 890 reads
"Air Quotes" in Lipstick Land

"It' has frequently been argued that there are too many "air quotes" at work in written renditions of solipsistic" lipstick land". "Lipstick land" is...
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- 512 reads
"Quotation Marks" (a solipsistic essay)

Let's get started on quotation marks, shall we? The solopsist in "me" believes that quotation marks can not be overused as air quotes serve to...
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- 910 reads
A Prosaic Portrait of Inner Sadness

By the time that Lucien Fate, everybody's favorite teacher, had traveled fifty times around the sun, he had accumulated a substantial layer of rust...
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- 481 reads
an essay on intuition and pervasive gladiolae

I've always been a believer that we use intuition to gather information rather than to process it; much in the same way that we use our senses. I...
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- 595 reads
Analyzing Rhonda
This morning we will discuss not only the importance of pronunciation as well as imagery differentiation but also the contrasts between inner/outer...
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- 568 reads
Conventional Broken Moondance in 16 steps

In space there is no up or down. This is good because most renderings of the moon are upside down. The renderings are based upon the way that the...
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- 464 reads
Decomposition
In the beginning..... A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A paragraph is a sentence or a group of interconnected...
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- 350 reads
Entrance Exam

Let's go back to that famous drawing of either the old hag or the beautiful woman where the shoulder of the beautiful woman is also the nose of the...
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- 831 reads
Erika From A Distance

Sometimes it's important to see things through the eyes of others. We received this letter from a niece named Erika who lives in North Carolina. Lynn...
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- 488 reads
Howling Hearts Stand Still
The appeal of the underdog is a howl from the heart. Each time we pull for the underdog, we experience the eternal struggle between heart and mind;...
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- 534 reads
Ironic Foolish Clowns

I've been dedicating a lot of foolish thought to clowns lately. Apparently, at least in the Shakespearean model, more clowns exist on this earth than...
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- 756 reads
Ironic Foolish Clowns Too

Furthermore Clowns are ridiculous but worthy, virtual and sensible to a fault. Clowns gracefully accept their own clumsiness. Clowns are more long...
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- 820 reads
What Thinking Looks Like

This is just an idea. No, that wasn't an idea, that was a thought, if that. This is just an idea is a sentence. A sentence is a group of words...
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- 576 reads
Human Being Tense

Unless you are a fictitious person, as I occasionally am, you are a human being. Let's invert that You are being human. To error is human. You are in...
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- 575 reads
Omnincompetent

I realize that first person point of view is often regarded as omniscient. The writer is in control of his universe and knows everything about...
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- 927 reads
Maybe tis better maybe to be than maybe not to be
Take the word "maybe". Please Maybe is made up of two verbs, may and be. In the case of maybe, two verbs together are not verbs, they are united...
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- 354 reads
Limited Future In The Past
Back in the distant past, not too many middle class guys had much of a future. We were draft bait. Our right to go to college and seek a career was...
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- 530 reads
Spelling List Racket
Yeah the spelling lists were a racket. Pre-test on Monday. Attach homework assignment. Write a sentence for each word on the list. Due tomorrow. On...
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- 361 reads
Taking the Fourth
Why I refuse to call my writing "humorous" except for this one which is the least humorous of all. Maybe this summary will clear matters up. Ha Ha Ha (sob)
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- 2881 reads
To Intentionally Split
What the hell, let's break some rules. We're told to never split infinitves. Most of us don't even know what an infinitve is so how would we know to...
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- 551 reads
Wraparound Feathers
In the beginning..... A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A paragraph is a sentence or a group of interconnected...
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- 385 reads
Sad and Beautiful and Grotesque (A Report)
I always hated writing "book reports" because I was taught that they had a format. Naturally, anything that has a format is distractive to me as I...
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- 451 reads
Dramatic, Grammatical Denial
Pronouns. Yeah, I take 'em personally. Especially when it comes to grammatic, dramatic denial. Someone mistook Robert Mitchum for Gary Cooper when...
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- 915 reads
Swiftly Making Buds
One day at a seminar on Aerospace, Krell was listening to a windbag whose lack of empathy manifested itself by confusing the incomprehensible with...
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- 364 reads
Teaching, Reading, Viewing and Criticizing Gatsby
Once upon a time in an English Department not far away, I asked one of my colleagues if he had ever read a certain book. “Read it? I haven’t even...
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- 423 reads
Teach to the Test and Commence
If you're gonna teach it, you've got to test it. If you're gonna test it, you've got to teach it. Create the test at the beginning of insruction not...
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- 368 reads
September
September is a bittersweet time for retired teachers. For those of you still in the game, cherish the opportunity..embrace the responsibility and...
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- 548 reads
This Is Your Writer Speaking
Your writer has been reading about languages that don't include the pronoun "I" and instead use the relationship of the first person to the second...
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- 872 reads
A Model of Incremental Repetition

DID You Miss Me When I was Gone? I missed you that's why I'm so glad to be back. I turn on my lamplight and get a shadowy glimpse of many of you. I'm...
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- 410 reads
The Usual Unusual
The time is finally right to read Hawthorne. I knew I'd get there eventually. Another example of art being forced down the throats of kids struggling...
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- 736 reads
Truth and Beauty
Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Science is aimed at truth, art aimed at beauty. When we examine our degrees, do they indicate an interest in beauty or...
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- 552 reads
Va Va Voom

Yesterday, one of my friends posted her picture on FB. She gets down once in awhile about her appearance. She’s worked hard to lose weight and she...
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- 514 reads
Birthday Blues
My birthday is December 30th. December 30th is also the birthday of Tracey Ullman, Sandy Koufax, Rudyard Kipling and Tiger Woods. I'm not adept at...
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- 381 reads
Mike Can Draw Beautiful Connections
Mike not only continued to draw but he also continued to listen with purpose and intention. Mike observed not only with his eyes but also with his...
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- 660 reads
Adam Asleep 400

Learning? I’ll tell you about Learning! You’re asleep in a dark room. It’s nighttime. You’re having a dream that is nowhere near lucid. The dream is...
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- 356 reads
Mister Badger

I became a teacher for many reasons, one of them being Mr. Badger. Mister Badger was my history teacher during my junior year. Badger associated good...
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- 547 reads
Romantic Love and Marriage

Romantic love demands obstacles. While we fall in love and before mystery inexorably turns into history, we discover the obstacles and barriers that...
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- 508 reads
Butterfly ( I Say Essay)

Every night I fall asleep while thinking about writiing. Eventually, a fraction of these thoughts will turn into words that stay. They will turn into...
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- 672 reads
A Stream Under Maybay Moon

Right now, at this very instant, I am writing in the stream of consciousness. Writing in the stream is a telepathic method of telling you what I've...
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- 261 reads
Breakfast With Mary

Double yolk eggs are single eggs that happen to have two yolks in them. They happen when a hen releases one yolk too soon after a prior one, and both...
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- 278 reads
Leaving Joyce for Turgenev
I'm a reader who has long contended that incomprehendible writing is not brilliant writing. So recently I was laboring my way through Ulysses when my...
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- 355 reads