Humor and Satire - It’s Tricky
Thanks to one of my Facebook friends, I was just reminded of this lovely happening:
Pretty hilarious, right? But what about the entire speech?
Even better! Watching this speech today reminded me how difficult it is to write humor/satire, for me at least. I tried once in AP Language and Composition my junior year of high school, and it just turned out… well… angry. Chock full of sorry attempts at satire, my essay turned out to be the most pessimistic, cynical piece of writing I had produced up to that point. And while pessimism and cynicism are great if they have a point, I can’t say I actually had a point.
After rewriting the piece three times, I had to do the dreaded last minute complete upheaval of my paper. You know how it goes - only a couple of days before the essay is due, and all of the sudden, you totally change your subject. But this time, I changed not only my subject, but my style. After weeks of staying in the satire mindset, I did a complete 180.
Now, With my most professional, Writing Center clerk face, I am supposed to tell you what changing your topic two days before an essay is due is not the best option. (Really, 99% of the time, just changing up how you frame your topic can take your paper from no good to so good). But sometimes, in the rough and tough world of paper crunch times, the worst is the only option.
In the end, I’m pretty content that I tried my hand at something new, even though I discovered I’m not all that great at it after all. It just goes to show that taking risks is totally worth it. I learn something about myself every time.
Stay tuned for next week, when I go deeper into the world of humor and satire, with a story from Champlain’s literary magazine, Willard & Maple.
Until then, I remain,
Taylor
(Source: ccwritingcenter)
Say what you will about William Faulkner’s strange stint as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he looks like he’s having a pretty amazing time in this photo.
Also worth nothing: He had an affair with a woman named Meta Carpenter. Just on a verbal level, that seems significant. Like, if Faulkner himself wrote about a writer having an affair with a woman with such a symbolically heavy name, you’d probably dismiss it as being too heavy-handed.
Just a thought.
via elcomfortador
…I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
Read of the Day: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
(Source: dailycuppajo)
via dailycuppajo
“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”
- J.K Rowling
via ibookworm
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