Violence, death, and killing in the 21st Century

Maybe that should have been the title of this class. September 11th, Iraq and Afghanistan past and present, and now young children. I guess it just goes to show you how much of our modern culture is based on violence. I always love when people make the argument that people who play violent video games commit violent acts. I play the same games as these kids and I know plenty of other people who do the same and none of us shoot up our school or go on killing sprees.
This play was definately good though. As sick as it sounds to admit that, but its true. I don't think it would be half as entertaining as Blackwatch to see performed live. It definately read well on paper though. I can't wait to hear what people in the class have to say about it, oh look, I don't have to wait.

Analyze the short stories

I think we should only read short stories for this class and talk about them. Some of the stories in this play are quiet interesting. Particularly the one about the man locked in a jail cell; it is something of a riddle. He knows he is guilty for a crime but can't remember what for, and when people come by and see the dead rapist and the dying murderer, they show sympathy towards them but scowl at the protagonist. I wonder what he did... Katurian says its a puzzle without an answer but I think that with the combined knowledge of the class and 3 hours to spend on it, we can surely come up with an answer I can live with.
This play is just starting to get too weird, and I kind of don't want to read it anymore so I think I will continue later or tomorrow or something.

Good Cop Bad Cop

Picturing the beginning of this play is easy because of all of the scenes in tv shows and movies with interrogations. The good cop is always trying to be nice and make it seem like you can just tell him what he wants to hear and you won't have to deal with the bad cop. The bad cop is just waiting for you to mouth off or be resistant because then he gets to fulfill his sadistic fantasies. In Pillowman, Tupolski is the good cop and Ariel is the bad cop. It is a typical interrogation in which it seems like the cops don't necessarily have any hard evidance and are trying to get the prisoner to confess to something he may not have done.
I think its comical that these cops have no specific confession they are looking for. I think that if Kutarian confessed to assasinating president Lincoln they would be satisfied by having done their job. I'm going to keep reading to see what else they try to suggest he has done wrong other than writing some sick stories about little children choking to death or getting their toes chopped off.

Anything is better than reading

Black Watch was awesome. Of course, this time I am referring to the play rather than the paper thing we had to read. I think reading it first was a waste of time. The play was so much better and refreshing considering how we had been reading so much similar stuff. The setup of St. Ann's Warehouse is very different from most theaters, and I think it contributed greatly to the performance. I'm glad that we were introduced to this play through the class, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. I'm not too crazy about plays, but the few I have seen(all off Broadway) were great and this one is right up there with them.
One of the midterm questions should ask us to explain how seeing the performance of Black Watch helped our understanding of what we read and how the performance benefited from the "stage" setup.

Black Watch

theres nothng like bag pipes to get the blood of the irish or scottish pumping. being 25% irish and 25% scottish myself, the pipes and drums certainly have this effect on me. the image of the pipes was just about all i liked about this play...

Another War Story?

Another peice of literature we read that deals with war. I mean, I realize that 21st century literature cannot completely avoid being about war because we have been at war for most of it. It's getting a little tiresome though. I thought people used to read books to escape reality and involve themselves in a fictionional tale. As I started reading Black Watch, I felt as though I was in store for just another story about the war in the Middle East.
I typed Black Watch in to a Google Images search and came up with some interesting results...
The first is of the Black Watch in I believe in 1908.
The second is of the Black Watch in Iraq in 2004.

Customized look

Okay, so I have changed the layout of my blog page to be more personal and unique. It wasn't that difficult and now it will look different than other people's. It wasn't hard to do and I hope more people will want to read my posts when they come across my page. Also, check out the poll question on the right side; I'm anticipating some very interesting results.
I started looking at Blackwatch and I thought there were a lot of typos within the first few sentences because it didn't make any sense, but I guess that is the slang the play is written with...Hopefully I'll get used to it sooner or later.

blogging on the fly

im writing this blog from my phone as a test so it might display oddly. im coming straight from practice to class tonight so i apologize for the smell of peanut butter which will be coming from my seat as i eat my post-workout "meal". hopefully this class discussion will not turn into a political debate about mccain because politics really doesnt interest me as much as it seems to other people.

Shooting War I

I was never really a fan of comics as a kid. And while Shooting War is not exactly a comic book, it doesn't really appeal to me. I found some of the satires in the graphic novel mildly humorous, but most of it was too dramatic in my opinion. It did read very quickly though contrary to what I thought and posted here before I began reading it. I think I was able to read through it so quickly because I didn't really take advantage of the digitally created pictures. Oh well, I'm sure we will look at many of them in class.