Friday, February 25, 2005
absurdity ensues
i read an article on Page2 of ESPN.com by the great Bill Simmons, aka "The Sports Guy," about ideas for great sitcoms. He said the description of any great sitcom should be two sentences. the first sentence describes the situation. which is followed by: hilarity ensues. (this is not word for word, but you get the idea). thats it, and i htink hes right. oh, and if youre wondering how the sports guy got to tlaking about tv, well thats cuz he talks about everything. he recently wrote a very long article analyzing in compare/contrast Dr. Jack style the OC and 90210 (seasons one and two only to be fair). maybe ill find the link when im done and smack it in their for all you OC fans.
so anyways I have an idea for a lecture series- or part of a lecture series- say two of 24 lectures. it goes like this: lecturer A, we'll call him andrew, goes on sabbatical and leaves a word for word script for his two lectures in a 24 part lecture class, along with slides and pverheads for lecturer B, we'll call him David, to recite and give his lectures. absurdity ensues.
I got this idea in conservation biology where this very thing occured. David Coomes, lecturer B, basically looks down at a piece of paper and reads for an hour, looking up for only a brief moment every thirty seconds or so. i know he wants to make more eye contace with the class, but he cant because he has to get back to reading. he gets to some parts where he can't read a word and he starts laughing. the whole way through he has a smile on his face because he too realizes this whole thing is absurd. at the end of today's lecture there was some data from Andrew's (not James Price) research and David (not Earle McKinney) said "we" instead of his because, again, he was reading the script. then there was the picture of Andrew's son. also funny.
one awesome thing about Coomes is that he takes a two minute break in the middle of lecture. apparently this is some department policy that noone but him follows. at halftime as I like to call it some of our (manisha was there too) plantsci friends, okay ALL of our plantsci friends asked us what was so funny. I explained how rediculous the whole hting was. then after halftime they were laughing too. before that everyone was giving us looks because they didnt understand what was funny. but after we explained it the class lightened up and almost everyone was laughing (appropriately of course).
okay, here is the link to the OC v. 90210 article. its actually a mailbag article. the area of interest here is at the bottom. it is very long. though the rest of his stuff is also good ,so you wanna read the whole thing. enjoy.
so anyways I have an idea for a lecture series- or part of a lecture series- say two of 24 lectures. it goes like this: lecturer A, we'll call him andrew, goes on sabbatical and leaves a word for word script for his two lectures in a 24 part lecture class, along with slides and pverheads for lecturer B, we'll call him David, to recite and give his lectures. absurdity ensues.
I got this idea in conservation biology where this very thing occured. David Coomes, lecturer B, basically looks down at a piece of paper and reads for an hour, looking up for only a brief moment every thirty seconds or so. i know he wants to make more eye contace with the class, but he cant because he has to get back to reading. he gets to some parts where he can't read a word and he starts laughing. the whole way through he has a smile on his face because he too realizes this whole thing is absurd. at the end of today's lecture there was some data from Andrew's (not James Price) research and David (not Earle McKinney) said "we" instead of his because, again, he was reading the script. then there was the picture of Andrew's son. also funny.
one awesome thing about Coomes is that he takes a two minute break in the middle of lecture. apparently this is some department policy that noone but him follows. at halftime as I like to call it some of our (manisha was there too) plantsci friends, okay ALL of our plantsci friends asked us what was so funny. I explained how rediculous the whole hting was. then after halftime they were laughing too. before that everyone was giving us looks because they didnt understand what was funny. but after we explained it the class lightened up and almost everyone was laughing (appropriately of course).
okay, here is the link to the OC v. 90210 article. its actually a mailbag article. the area of interest here is at the bottom. it is very long. though the rest of his stuff is also good ,so you wanna read the whole thing. enjoy.
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