In fiction writing classes, critiquing stories means giving people the hard truth about what works and what doesn't. "Rules" don't work very well for fiction. There's the "gosling rule," which says that the first person you meet in a story should be the main character. But some really good stories don't follow that; the gosling rule just happens to work well most of the time. That's the tricky part about writing fiction: finding what works.
The author usually isn't very good at determining what works. In fact, sometimes a particular paragraph or phrase or idea seems brilliant and necessary--but it doesn't work in the story. I've had an idea for a story that's evolved so that when I start writing the story the inspirational idea is a clunky addition. If I force it in, someone needs to tell me to take it out.
Those are the changes that are the hardest to make. "Kill your darlings," they say. It's painful, but your story is much better for it.
Well, when I drafted a script for the Crest commercial Ben and I made, the slogan was "People buying Crest is not like Crest." Toothpaste comes out a tube and won't go back in. People buying toothpaste, on the other hand, are free to return it. So I had in mind juxtaposing shots of a guy trying to make toothpaste go back in the tube with the shots about the craziness of the video. But that made the video even more difficult to understand, because you had to infer what about people buying Crest was not like Crest and how that mattered. We filmed it, strung all the scenes together, and it didn't work.
Ben broke the news to me that we had to change it. And so we killed my darling toothpaste squeezing scene and the commercial was better for it.
But I still like the scene so much that I'm resurrecting it so everyone can enjoy Dan making a mess on Julie Vaiarella's table. AGHHH!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Tied for First
Several entries ago I posted the commercial Ben Rush and I made for the Jungle Smash video contest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pcjYiN3fw
Our video sets up an elaborate, ridiculous situation about people buying toothpaste and then contrasts it with the serenity of actually using toothpaste. I thought it was a pretty good commercial. It was at least good enough to be criticized in the comments for the contest.
Well, the winner was supposed to be announced November 3rd. November 3rd came and went with no update from the creator. Then a few more days went by. People began asking in the comments whether the contest was still happening or not. No response.
I thought the contest must have been a scam after all. Ben and I spent so much time and effort making our Crest commercial and then it was for a contest that wasn't even going to be judged. (I was crestfallen, perhaps.) I emailed the guys from the blog I heard about the contest from and they said they'd pass it on to him.
And then, late last week, our video appeared with a few others as a finalist, with the winner to be announced in two days. Four days went by, and then I got an email saying Ben and I had tied for first. Where do we live so he can mail us a check?
Wahoo!!! Ben and I allotted 80% of our $1000 prize to ourselves--it's like a part-time job that I don't have!--and the rest to our amazing actors. I thought it would be a nice touch to give everyone a celebratory tube of Crest in a gift bag, but then I remembered I can't even wrap presents very well, let alone give a pretty token of our appreciation.
Our video starts with a guy buying some toothpaste so he can enter a contest, and when he sees someone else at the store he somehow gets in mind that if both their videos are good, they could each get half of the prize money. And then in real life the prize is split and we get half the original prize. Correlation or causation? I think Ben and I have a future making commercials together if we can dictate people's responses that closely. We'd be the new wave of marketing: like hiring a Jedi to advertise your product. A Jedi that makes a sweet buck for his work. And one who actually brushes with Colgate.
Wahoo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pcjYiN3fw
Our video sets up an elaborate, ridiculous situation about people buying toothpaste and then contrasts it with the serenity of actually using toothpaste. I thought it was a pretty good commercial. It was at least good enough to be criticized in the comments for the contest.
Well, the winner was supposed to be announced November 3rd. November 3rd came and went with no update from the creator. Then a few more days went by. People began asking in the comments whether the contest was still happening or not. No response.
I thought the contest must have been a scam after all. Ben and I spent so much time and effort making our Crest commercial and then it was for a contest that wasn't even going to be judged. (I was crestfallen, perhaps.) I emailed the guys from the blog I heard about the contest from and they said they'd pass it on to him.
And then, late last week, our video appeared with a few others as a finalist, with the winner to be announced in two days. Four days went by, and then I got an email saying Ben and I had tied for first. Where do we live so he can mail us a check?
Wahoo!!! Ben and I allotted 80% of our $1000 prize to ourselves--it's like a part-time job that I don't have!--and the rest to our amazing actors. I thought it would be a nice touch to give everyone a celebratory tube of Crest in a gift bag, but then I remembered I can't even wrap presents very well, let alone give a pretty token of our appreciation.
Our video starts with a guy buying some toothpaste so he can enter a contest, and when he sees someone else at the store he somehow gets in mind that if both their videos are good, they could each get half of the prize money. And then in real life the prize is split and we get half the original prize. Correlation or causation? I think Ben and I have a future making commercials together if we can dictate people's responses that closely. We'd be the new wave of marketing: like hiring a Jedi to advertise your product. A Jedi that makes a sweet buck for his work. And one who actually brushes with Colgate.
Wahoo!
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Education and Racquetball
A friend I'll call Sarah and I like to play racquetball together. Sarah isn't very good at sports and has in mind that I'll teach her how to play. We've worked our way into a rhythm of hitting the ball around a bit and then playing a few games. Yesterday Sarah got frustrated because she couldn't return my serves and declared I wasn't doing a good job teaching. I was certainly able to admit that could be true, but I didn't know what to replace it with. Sarah didn't have good form hitting the ball, didn't have good timing, didn't use the back wall effectively. She knew it, too, but couldn't fix it.
I thought about our lesson the rest of the day and realized that there were several factors contributing to my ineffective teaching.
First, I don't know how to correct the bad habits Sarah can't correct. Simply put, she hits like a girl: her arm moves like a shaken hose, only having force at the tip. I noticed that was different from the way I hit, but we haven't made much progress getting her to be less noodly hitting the ball.
Second, I learned racquetball on my own, so I have no authority in telling people what's good and what's bad. In juggling, for example, if you can do a pattern, you must know how to do it. Racquetball takes two people, though, and just because I frequently beat Dan doesn't mean I actually know what I'm doing. I feel bad telling Sarah she's doing something wrong when I might be doing something wrong, too, and just not know it.
I mention this only because it made me think about a theory of education. I think education is naturally like this picture:
The dark red is your knowledge area, and the light red is your ability to communicate it. The most basic parts can be communicated easily: there probably isn't a lot of difference in the way I explain the rules of racquetball and the way an expert would. His dark red square would be five times the size of mine, but my light red is almost as dense as his would be at the middle. The closer you get to the limits of your ability, the less able you are to explain what you're doing. I can barely juggle seven balls, so if I saw someone struggling, I'd just be able to root them on. What's wrong with their pattern? They're not doing it right, I guess. I don't know. Why can't Dan beat me in racquetball? I don't know, I'm just a little bit better than he is.
If someone teaches you something, you have an additional layer of knowledge: you remember how you learned it.
Now your light red has paths so that if you barely understand something, you can still explain it to others parroting the way you learned it. I'm not great at differential equations, but I can still talk people through my notes.
And so, since I never learned how to play racquetball and didn't have to fix the same problems, my light red area is pretty thin. Now to just convince Sarah it's not my fault I can't teach her, it's just that I don't have a lot of light red...
I thought about our lesson the rest of the day and realized that there were several factors contributing to my ineffective teaching.
First, I don't know how to correct the bad habits Sarah can't correct. Simply put, she hits like a girl: her arm moves like a shaken hose, only having force at the tip. I noticed that was different from the way I hit, but we haven't made much progress getting her to be less noodly hitting the ball.
Second, I learned racquetball on my own, so I have no authority in telling people what's good and what's bad. In juggling, for example, if you can do a pattern, you must know how to do it. Racquetball takes two people, though, and just because I frequently beat Dan doesn't mean I actually know what I'm doing. I feel bad telling Sarah she's doing something wrong when I might be doing something wrong, too, and just not know it.
I mention this only because it made me think about a theory of education. I think education is naturally like this picture:
The dark red is your knowledge area, and the light red is your ability to communicate it. The most basic parts can be communicated easily: there probably isn't a lot of difference in the way I explain the rules of racquetball and the way an expert would. His dark red square would be five times the size of mine, but my light red is almost as dense as his would be at the middle. The closer you get to the limits of your ability, the less able you are to explain what you're doing. I can barely juggle seven balls, so if I saw someone struggling, I'd just be able to root them on. What's wrong with their pattern? They're not doing it right, I guess. I don't know. Why can't Dan beat me in racquetball? I don't know, I'm just a little bit better than he is.
If someone teaches you something, you have an additional layer of knowledge: you remember how you learned it.
Now your light red has paths so that if you barely understand something, you can still explain it to others parroting the way you learned it. I'm not great at differential equations, but I can still talk people through my notes.
And so, since I never learned how to play racquetball and didn't have to fix the same problems, my light red area is pretty thin. Now to just convince Sarah it's not my fault I can't teach her, it's just that I don't have a lot of light red...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
De-summer-izing Myself
Florida doesn't have seasons. It has "hurricane season" and "Christmas season" but there's only so much fall and winter you can impose on a place which is called the "Sunshine State." We've given up on fall, but I have a pet theory about Gainesville's winter: we get two weeks of winter spread over "winter" in 2-3 day spurts. That's important, because if you're slow to warm up to the cold, it'll be over by the time you're wearing your coat. People don't really have more than one coat here.
Now that it's past Halloween, I've transitioned to wearing pants. I have two pairs of jeans, and that should last me the month or so in between trips to a washing machine. But now I have to re-calculate.
Look at these rails:
Pretty sweet, you say. I'd like that yellow for my pants, you say. Been there, brushed against that:
I vigorously scrubbed, but I'm not sure if the paint will come off. Don't you have to put signs up in America when there's wet paint?
I also have to improvise when it comes to wearing more than a t-shirt. I've recently gone for the t-shirt scarf look, which I'm not sure is just native to people who've never needed to use a scarf or if this has always existed and we just never progress past it here:
In China I heard the phrase "a scarf is half a sweater." I think it's supposed to be a cute thing to say when your family is cold and all you have is a lousy sweater, but coming out of Gainesville's mini-winters, it's too warm for a real sweater and too cold for nothing. Hence my chic fake Burberry. And that's how I dress in between the rainy season and the not-as-rainy season.
Now that it's past Halloween, I've transitioned to wearing pants. I have two pairs of jeans, and that should last me the month or so in between trips to a washing machine. But now I have to re-calculate.
Look at these rails:
Pretty sweet, you say. I'd like that yellow for my pants, you say. Been there, brushed against that:
I vigorously scrubbed, but I'm not sure if the paint will come off. Don't you have to put signs up in America when there's wet paint?
I also have to improvise when it comes to wearing more than a t-shirt. I've recently gone for the t-shirt scarf look, which I'm not sure is just native to people who've never needed to use a scarf or if this has always existed and we just never progress past it here:
In China I heard the phrase "a scarf is half a sweater." I think it's supposed to be a cute thing to say when your family is cold and all you have is a lousy sweater, but coming out of Gainesville's mini-winters, it's too warm for a real sweater and too cold for nothing. Hence my chic fake Burberry. And that's how I dress in between the rainy season and the not-as-rainy season.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
A China Moment
I picked a winner in this year's election. Go Obama! Now we can go back to having only opinions that don't really matter. All this individual equality thing was going to my head. I'm not experienced and wise; who cares what I say? Now no one does, again.
I've been stressed out the last few days. I'm not sure why, really. Taking 12 credits isn't conducive to stress. But I've been on hold for a lot of things, and that's taken a toll on me: the election; the Crest contest; a date; another contest; the impending LSAT. This morning I couldn't make myself do any work, so I decided to go mail my friend's book back to him. In the summer I traveled to a remote part of China with my friend Alex, and then when he had to leave I went to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan by myself. He had a phrase book (which ended up being useless) which he lent to me on the condition I return it to him when we both got back to America.
Today was the day, then, but in my fragile state the best I could do was go to the store on campus, Do it Reitz (a pun on the name of the student union), and have them tell me what kind of packaging and postage I needed.
While I was there, I had a China moment. It started lightly: I felt like I was barely keeping my head above the water of life. I mailed more things in China than I have in America, so it was also understandable that I wasn't confident in the store. They type the label up for you, so I recited Alex's address to her. Then she asked for a phone number. "What?" I asked, and was reminded of how I was much better at Chinese when I knew what question was coming next. Apparently that's true for me in English, too. "A phone number," she said.
I don't have Alex's phone number memorized, so I wanted to tell her that I didn't have one. For about a second, though, all I could think of was an answer in Chinese: "没有。" I stuttered, knowing that wasn't right.
That's a pretty good China moment. I don't often have the urge to reply to people in Chinese. But it consummated itself a minute later.
"That'll be $12," the girl said. Mind you, the book I was sending is post-card size with fewer than 50 pages.
"That seems pretty high," I ventured.
"Well, we're a private business, so we're not allowed to compete with government prices," she said--or something like that. She spoke in English, obviously, but I didn't really understand what she meant. I only understood the general idea: she wanted $12 from me. I thought about leaving and going to the post office on the other side of campus, but rejected that because I didn't have the stamina for it at that moment.
In China, I was glad to be a rich American, because it meant I didn't have to sweat the small stuff. If I got ripped off a few kuai my budget wasn't off-kilter. Of course, the longer I was there the more I became able to live like a Chinese person would, and the less my spending would be out of the ordinary. But while I got adjusted I explicitly allowed for what I termed my "foreigner tax." That is, if I were Chinese, I'd know not to buy that brand because it sucks and I wouldn't have just wasted three dollars.
Anyway, the girl at the counter told me I'd have to pay a ridiculous amount to send Alex my package, and I knew vaguely that it was way too high. And as I brought out my debit card to pay for it, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a pretty high foreigner tax."
But then I remembered I'm not a foreigner here.
I've been stressed out the last few days. I'm not sure why, really. Taking 12 credits isn't conducive to stress. But I've been on hold for a lot of things, and that's taken a toll on me: the election; the Crest contest; a date; another contest; the impending LSAT. This morning I couldn't make myself do any work, so I decided to go mail my friend's book back to him. In the summer I traveled to a remote part of China with my friend Alex, and then when he had to leave I went to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan by myself. He had a phrase book (which ended up being useless) which he lent to me on the condition I return it to him when we both got back to America.
Today was the day, then, but in my fragile state the best I could do was go to the store on campus, Do it Reitz (a pun on the name of the student union), and have them tell me what kind of packaging and postage I needed.
While I was there, I had a China moment. It started lightly: I felt like I was barely keeping my head above the water of life. I mailed more things in China than I have in America, so it was also understandable that I wasn't confident in the store. They type the label up for you, so I recited Alex's address to her. Then she asked for a phone number. "What?" I asked, and was reminded of how I was much better at Chinese when I knew what question was coming next. Apparently that's true for me in English, too. "A phone number," she said.
I don't have Alex's phone number memorized, so I wanted to tell her that I didn't have one. For about a second, though, all I could think of was an answer in Chinese: "没有。" I stuttered, knowing that wasn't right.
That's a pretty good China moment. I don't often have the urge to reply to people in Chinese. But it consummated itself a minute later.
"That'll be $12," the girl said. Mind you, the book I was sending is post-card size with fewer than 50 pages.
"That seems pretty high," I ventured.
"Well, we're a private business, so we're not allowed to compete with government prices," she said--or something like that. She spoke in English, obviously, but I didn't really understand what she meant. I only understood the general idea: she wanted $12 from me. I thought about leaving and going to the post office on the other side of campus, but rejected that because I didn't have the stamina for it at that moment.
In China, I was glad to be a rich American, because it meant I didn't have to sweat the small stuff. If I got ripped off a few kuai my budget wasn't off-kilter. Of course, the longer I was there the more I became able to live like a Chinese person would, and the less my spending would be out of the ordinary. But while I got adjusted I explicitly allowed for what I termed my "foreigner tax." That is, if I were Chinese, I'd know not to buy that brand because it sucks and I wouldn't have just wasted three dollars.
Anyway, the girl at the counter told me I'd have to pay a ridiculous amount to send Alex my package, and I knew vaguely that it was way too high. And as I brought out my debit card to pay for it, I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a pretty high foreigner tax."
But then I remembered I'm not a foreigner here.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
A Culinary Adventure
One of my friends, Mike Braverman, enjoys cooking. He does life slowly, and I think that's why. I have no patience for cooking, but that's why people have friends. I screw up Mike's dinners and he teaches me that speed doesn't equal quality.
So a few nights ago we decided to make dinner together. Dan joined along, so the three of us trekked to Publix to select food there. Mike had a plan. "A meal has meat, a vegetable, and a starch," he said. Dan thought anything that wasn't steak wasn't real meat, but I convinced him legitimate meals could be made with chicken. I don't love squash, but after living in China, can eat anything I need to and didn't protest that being our vegetable. French bread topped off the meal. We needed to use spaghetti sauce. Dan and I didn't know if we had spaghetti sauce. I forgot to add that this is the first time we've cooked this school year. I make sandwiches, and Dan's used his George Foreman once or twice, but the stove has basically been out of commission. Maybe that's why I feel comfortable playing music from my laptop there when I'm cleaning:
But no more using the stove as a table. I flattened the chicken with a brick, Dan sliced the squash, and Mike set up an elaborate process to make garlic bread.
Looking back, I think I get frustrated when I don't have proper equipment. We realized that Dan and I do not have a spatula. To Mike's great amazement, though, we do have a garlic press (left over from the great fall purge):
And then we didn't have any serrated knives. After trying to slice the bread, I got too aggravated and we ended up ripping off pieces.
The meal tasted okay. The squash was a little soggy, the bread had too strong of a flavor, and the chicken tasted average--no offense to Mike's cooking experience. I expected that since we were doing things ourselves it'd be really cheap, but it wasn't. I have to say, I'm not inspired to cook more now. In fact, now that I've seen the limitations of our utensils, I feel less inclined to spend time doing something I'm not good at. Maybe I could find a girl to give me lessons.
Does anyone want to get me a spatula for Christmas? Then I could make omelets. I already have a dozen eggs in my refrigerator that I haven't touched from the first week of school, so I'm all set there. Then I'll practically be a chef. After all, I do have a garlic press.
So a few nights ago we decided to make dinner together. Dan joined along, so the three of us trekked to Publix to select food there. Mike had a plan. "A meal has meat, a vegetable, and a starch," he said. Dan thought anything that wasn't steak wasn't real meat, but I convinced him legitimate meals could be made with chicken. I don't love squash, but after living in China, can eat anything I need to and didn't protest that being our vegetable. French bread topped off the meal. We needed to use spaghetti sauce. Dan and I didn't know if we had spaghetti sauce. I forgot to add that this is the first time we've cooked this school year. I make sandwiches, and Dan's used his George Foreman once or twice, but the stove has basically been out of commission. Maybe that's why I feel comfortable playing music from my laptop there when I'm cleaning:
But no more using the stove as a table. I flattened the chicken with a brick, Dan sliced the squash, and Mike set up an elaborate process to make garlic bread.
Looking back, I think I get frustrated when I don't have proper equipment. We realized that Dan and I do not have a spatula. To Mike's great amazement, though, we do have a garlic press (left over from the great fall purge):
And then we didn't have any serrated knives. After trying to slice the bread, I got too aggravated and we ended up ripping off pieces.
The meal tasted okay. The squash was a little soggy, the bread had too strong of a flavor, and the chicken tasted average--no offense to Mike's cooking experience. I expected that since we were doing things ourselves it'd be really cheap, but it wasn't. I have to say, I'm not inspired to cook more now. In fact, now that I've seen the limitations of our utensils, I feel less inclined to spend time doing something I'm not good at. Maybe I could find a girl to give me lessons.
Does anyone want to get me a spatula for Christmas? Then I could make omelets. I already have a dozen eggs in my refrigerator that I haven't touched from the first week of school, so I'm all set there. Then I'll practically be a chef. After all, I do have a garlic press.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
To the Masses: about "Epic"
My post is going to be short since I'm at home this weekend and blogging isn't high on my list of priorities compared to watching UF cream Georgia, seeing Melanie do really well in her marching competition (well, seeing the band do well anyway; it's hard to tell who's who among 300 kids in the same outfit), and talking to all my family. Plus, tonight's daylight savings, so I'm losing an hour doing this. It's an epic night.
I try to be open to new uses of good words, but I admit it's a struggle. "Epic" was a good word. Lord of the Rings, Virgil's Aeneid, Paradise Lost--great epics. And when you know what an epic is, then it makes sense to apply the word to, say, a literary work or a movie, or even an effort. "He's writing an epic poem." Cool. I'm okay with the adjectival use.
Then you figure, well, if "epic" describes an effort that will be remembered for all history and takes place across generations, that you should use it to mean a situation that you think is cool. "That was an epic pass from Tebow." Mm, I resist.
Here's why I resist: I'm not against language changing for new meanings, but I do resist changes that are a crutch for those with small vocabularies. Using "epic" trivially conflates its meaning and forces it to be just another way to say "good." I don't have a voluminous vocabulary, but I don't think it's hard to be more specific than "good." And if you have to make up words so it doesn't look like you have dull-witted, repetitive ideas, then I think you're wasting you're time because people will eventually notice. Ooh! Epic burn.
But it gets worse. Give the masses an inch, and each person pulls for a mile. (That makes for a lot of miles, distributed over everyone.) "Epic" is now acquiring a colloquial adverbial sense. Yes, I hate to break it to you, but I have heard, in real conversation, "That was epic cool." At least the masses discard all semblance of grammaticality and skip "epically cool."
"Epic" in this sense means "really." "He's really ticked off" becomes, "He was, like, epic pissed off." So, for anyone who likes to use the words "good" and "really," but not really, then "epic" is the word for you. It's epic good, dawg. Can't we all talk like this instead of like this?
I try to be open to new uses of good words, but I admit it's a struggle. "Epic" was a good word. Lord of the Rings, Virgil's Aeneid, Paradise Lost--great epics. And when you know what an epic is, then it makes sense to apply the word to, say, a literary work or a movie, or even an effort. "He's writing an epic poem." Cool. I'm okay with the adjectival use.
Then you figure, well, if "epic" describes an effort that will be remembered for all history and takes place across generations, that you should use it to mean a situation that you think is cool. "That was an epic pass from Tebow." Mm, I resist.
Here's why I resist: I'm not against language changing for new meanings, but I do resist changes that are a crutch for those with small vocabularies. Using "epic" trivially conflates its meaning and forces it to be just another way to say "good." I don't have a voluminous vocabulary, but I don't think it's hard to be more specific than "good." And if you have to make up words so it doesn't look like you have dull-witted, repetitive ideas, then I think you're wasting you're time because people will eventually notice. Ooh! Epic burn.
But it gets worse. Give the masses an inch, and each person pulls for a mile. (That makes for a lot of miles, distributed over everyone.) "Epic" is now acquiring a colloquial adverbial sense. Yes, I hate to break it to you, but I have heard, in real conversation, "That was epic cool." At least the masses discard all semblance of grammaticality and skip "epically cool."
"Epic" in this sense means "really." "He's really ticked off" becomes, "He was, like, epic pissed off." So, for anyone who likes to use the words "good" and "really," but not really, then "epic" is the word for you. It's epic good, dawg. Can't we all talk like this instead of like this?
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