Ke-dollar sign-ha

I desperately wish I'd been at the planning session for this music video.

"So...we need unicorns. Unicorn heads on human bodies. Yes. Alright, that's solid. What else? How about James Van Der Beek? Yeah, the guy from Dawson's Creek. No, I don't think he's done anything since then...What? He was in an episode of Ugly Betty? Uh, okay, that's great. He also does some Funny or Die videos, but those are usually riding the Dawson gravy train too, so it's a wash. Anyway, he'll be cheap, and he's still pretty good-looking. Okay, so how do we get Dawson Leery into the unicorn room? He should send Ke$ha something. What, like a diamond? A love letter? Hmmm...how about a piece of cheese? That's a winning idea right there! What kind of cheese? Well, that's a silly question. Only one type of cheese deserves this sort of centerpiece attention, and that's muenster. No, fuck you, I hate Swiss, we're using muenster. Okay cool. Unicorns, James Van Der Beek, and muenster. We're missing something. Wait, what's the song about again? Let's look at the lyrics:

Hahahahahahahahaha.Dance.

Back door cracked
We don't need a key
We get in for free
No VIP sleaze

Drink that Kool-Aid
Follow my lead
Now you're one of us
You're coming with me

It's time to kill the lights
And shut the DJ down
(This place about to)
Tonight were taking over
No one's getting out

This place about to blow (blow) (x4)
This place about to...

Um...yeah, I don't know. Can Dawson dance? No, no, he definitely cannot dance. Let's just ignore the lyrics, give Dawson and Ke$ha rainbow laser guns, and call it a day.

Oh, also Ke$ha will make out with one of the unicorns. The one with an eye patch."

I think I'm pursuing the wrong career path.

White Chocolate: A Dennis Miller-Style Rant

copyright David G-H @ flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/19998197@N00/)

Chocolate is beautifully simple. There's a reason people go crazy for the stuff; it's delicious and enjoys a culturally iconic status on par with bacon. (And when the two meet, it's magical.) But the love is not unconditional, so can we all just agree that white chocolate is a terrible, utterly failed concept?

Now I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but no one worth their weight in Godiva enjoys white chocolate. It is an affront to the institution of chocolate, a merry “F-U” to the elegant beauty of mouth-watering morsels that are so awesome, they’re an aphrodisiac. Dark chocolate can literally get you laid. White chocolate hasn’t gotten anyone lucky since the 1970’s, and that was only because everyone was exceptionally stoned and named Lucky.

White chocolate isn't even chocolate: It doesn't contain cocoa solids, which are what give other chocolates their brown color. It's mostly milk and sugar. It might as well be a breakfast cereal aimed at eight-year-olds. Is Tony the Tiger looking for a new gig?

White chocolate is the Boone's Farm of chocolates. It's eaten out of necessity, not desire: Your parents are gone for the night and you’ve got one shot at getting drunk for the first time with your dumbass junior high best friend. You consume it because it’s there. It gets the job done. And then you weep with relief later in life when your taste buds encounter the real thing.

In case you’ve ever deceived yourself into believing that it isn’t that bad, allow me to present the pièce de résistance: White chocolate can’t be used in candy bars. How fucking useless is that? Think about it: Reese’s, Snickers, Butterfinger, Milky Way, truffles would all be terrible if encased in white chocolate. It’d be like eating vomit-coated peanuts. With nougat. And I know for a fact that the only people that enjoy that are the French.

If you're still on the fence, take a gander at the sort of marketing available for white chocolate:


I dare you to ever look at white chocolate the same way again.

Death to white chocolate. But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

The (Twitter) Discourse

copyright DailyPic @ flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/dailypic/)

We talk in education classes about a "discourse," or the idea that a community creates its own tailored language, complete with standard conventions, jargon, even inside jokes. Every group has a discourse: academia, Chicago south side urbanites, Big Island locals, Wall Street veterans, junior high science teachers, even the Northwestern University Marching Band, to name a few. Each group speaks a lexicon that is understood by its members, often to the exclusion of outsiders. (NUMB makes a rather strong case, actually.)

One of the goals of education, specifically when teaching writing, is to introduce students to many different kinds of discourses. The hope is that we go beyond what the student already knows and literally expand their world by showing them the lenses belonging to people who are different from them. Usually this begins with the simple task of making sure everyone is on the same page with standard English -- and often that's where we sputter. A communication barrier exists between a student and a teacher that cannot speak the same language, or cannot recognize what creates the differences. That's where creative and compassionate teaching comes in.

But there is so much to teach. We want students of language to appreciate the many ways that language is used, from stuffy academic journals to newspaper articles to cryptic blogs to Facebook wall posts to grocery lists. We want them to know why and how all of this content is created and used; who's doing it and for what reasons. Literacy -- fluency in a discourse -- cannot exist without that understanding of audience, purpose and especially subject.

My latest attempt at learning a new discourse is Twitter. I was familiar with the basic premise -- 140 character max, the concept and usage of the "re-tweet," even the many opportunities for #hashtaghumor. As a n00b of the discourse, I've tread carefully -- I don't want to look silly in front of my new pals, or new connections to old pals. I've learned that pushing the "re-tweet" button, for example, does not allow you to add your own comment; to do so, you have to copy-paste, throw in an @[source of original Tweet], and so forth. These things become natural to us the more we participate in a given discourse. In no time, I'll be throwing hash tags around like nobody's business, holding inherently disjointed conversations with my fellow Tweeters (Twitterers? Twitters? Twits? I still have things to learn).

The hardest part, really, is taking the leap and attempting to join a new community. The learning curve can be intimidating, the fear of failure or embarrassment paralyzing. It's one of the reasons that it's so hard to get students unfamiliar with the academic discourse to trust that they can handle the material. If the community they come from doesn't value canonical authors, the likelihood that the student will care about James Joyce or Shakespeare is pretty much nil. They're irrelevant, even trivial, in the practical life of the student. And it's hard to learn a new discourse -- there's always the fear of not passing, of your peers and teachers seeing through your act and knowing you're a phony.

I finally understand why some of my teachers were so great, and some so disappointing.

This non-traditional, five-paragraph (plus a stinger) essay brought to you by almost 20 years of sometimes great, sometimes terrible, sometimes public, sometimes private, often dull, always under-funded schooling.

Irony, thy name is Writer's Block

Damn you, Dennis Miller.

Chicago, That Toddlin' Town

Chicago skyline, circa summer 2009

Every day I am reminded how much I love living in Chicago. I feel like I have an obligation to live other places at some point in my life, just for experiences' sake, but I'm in no rush to leave. Bethany will kill me if I don't eventually move to Manhattan; we'll see how it goes.

For now, at least, Chicago is my hometown.

It's Weezer Thursday!

The babbling just kills me.

Also, check out the hair on Rivers. So 1994. Maybe it's the geek chic thing, but I definitely prefer his current look.

Caving to the Twitterverse

Narcissism incarnate.

I was working as an intern at PC Magazine when Twitter really took hold of the media in 2007. Almost everyone around me that was hip and technologically savvy -- so, you know, pretty much everyone at Ziff Davis -- jumped on the bandwagon. I did not.

I was a naysayer, a non-believer. Everything was moving too fast for me to keep up. It was a trend, a fad, a way for narcissists to project more of themselves into the world, regardless of whether we want to read about their every thought or breakfast decision. It'd go away once people realized that it was basically useless, a haven for the self-obsessed. Does this sound familiar?

Well, I underestimated American society. And, also, I was wrong.

Twitter is a great tool, particularly for a journalist. Writers spend the time we aren't writing wondering whether anyone is reading what we're writing, and scheming new ways to catch new and more eyes, to create some reverberation in the massive expanse of the media void. It operates on the same premise as Facebook in that it's completely composed of what people put into it of themselves. And what we've put into it -- breaking news, pop culture, cupcake trucks -- is astounding. Twitter may have started as an overshare device, but it's becoming a cultural necessity.

As I embark on a concerted effort to get published more regularly as a freelance writer, my plan is to use Twitter as a professional resource, an RSS feed of links and (hopefully coherent, relevant and engaging) thoughts. I will forever be overshadowed by Kanye West, but hey, follow me @britpetersen. I could use the company.

How might one wrap a heart in clover, and for what purpose?

My love of old music started early. This song would be the unequivocal winner if I were ever held at gunpoint and forced to choose the best recording ever made. Let's hope that never happens, but it's nice to know that I'm prepared for anything.

Happy Valentine's Day! (Or, per your preference, Singles Awareness Day.)

Steve Heminover, Mad Scientist

Last spring I got a chance to interview a really interesting guy named Steve Heminover who happens to do the light shows for all the sports events at the United Center. The fruits of that adventure are below. Enjoy!

Steve Heminover, Mad Scientist

The United Center is deserted. The building hums and the smell of stale beer lingers in the air. It’s eerie, cavernous. Yesterday, 22,000 spectators watched the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Vancouver Canucks in Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinal series. But tonight, we have the place to ourselves.

Steve Heminover flips on a light switch in the control box and motions me to a chair overlooking the ice. He turns on a computer that looks like it belongs in a NASA cockpit and drums his fingers on the table. Windows start-up chimes and after a quick test to make sure his half-a-million-dollar equipment is working properly, he starts the show. Four green aerial lasers shoot upward from the corners of the arena. A laser animation of Benny the Bulls mascot is projected onto the floor.

“It’s more impressive with the music,” he says apologetically. Indeed, Bulls fans might overlook the lasers with everything else going on during the opening – scoreboard videos, blasting music, dancing Luvabulls. The United Center is the only arena in the country with a permanent laser installation, and Heminover has been running the shows at Blackhawks and Bulls games for more than fourteen years.

“Have you ever played with an Etch A Sketch?” Heminover asks. “It’s like that but the computer does it so fast. It turns the beam on and off, changes the color, and it has to move it around and all these things have to coordinate at once to make it work.” The end result is a laser animation that represents decades of innovation.

Pre-game laser show during a packed Bulls game at the United Center. Photo courtesy of Steve Heminover.

Fifty-six-year-old Heminover has been working with lasers for so long that he’s helped build the foundation for the entire industry. “When I started in the laser business, nobody had any tools to do what I wanted to do,” he says. “So I had to invent them. I literally wrote, from scratch, my own graphics language for doing lasers.” That language is the ancestor to modern stereoscopy and 3-D technology. If you saw Avatar in 3-D, you can thank Heminover for helping to lay the groundwork.

“I used to wonder when I was growing up why I could do all these things,” Heminover says. “And I realized that what comes easy to me doesn’t come easy to other people. These things are gifts. I mean, I can work in several disciplines. To do laser light shows that I’ve done for years, I have to be an electrician, I have to be a plumber, I have to be a contractor, I have to be an artist, I have to be an engineer, I have to be a safety guy.”

In 1987, Heminover pulled his various talents together to found a multimedia company, Aura Technologies Inc., which specializes in finding creative solutions to technological problems. The company has designed instant-replay boxes for the Major League Baseball, fiberoptics for Motorola, and electronic packaging for Leo Burnett Worldwide ad agency.

“Someday you’ll see a cereal box with a video game on the front,” Heminover says. “You’ll just throw it away when you’re done.”

Heminover seems to live and dream in a futuristic movie. His office is decorated with Star Trek and Star Wars posters. His cell phone ring is a Jetsons jingle. He even looks vaguely like George Lucas. The geekiness pays off; with thirty years of experience in electrical and design engineering, it’s guys like Heminover that continually invent the things we couldn’t even conceive of ten years earlier.

“What did Arthur C. Clarke say?” he asks, eyes twinkling behind wire-rimmed glasses. “'Any technology, sufficiently advanced, will seem like magic.'” Whether it’s the rise of the Internet or 3-D printing, Heminover is always on the lookout for the next frontier. Lasers are just his day job.

At the United Center, my personal laser show is coming to a close. Before he shuts down the system, Heminover says there’s one more feature that is reserved for “special guests.”

“You’ll like this,” he says with a sly smile. “And they say we don’t have a sense of humor.”

He boots up software that came pre-loaded on the laser system. A faint “Pew! Pew!” sound emits from the control room speakers as the 50-by-50-foot grid lights up with the opening screen of one of the world’s most recognizable video games.

“You play Asteroids on the ice of the United Center?”

Heminover starts to answer, but the urgency of fragging a 30-foot laser rock distracts him. He hands me the controls to the world’s most expensive video game and asks, “You got another quarter?”

It's not the best quality video, but you get the idea.

Ode to Elvis

I took an informal poll this evening of my friends' first CDs. The answers, unsurprisingly, were scattered; we covered everything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam to the Beach Boys and boyband realm (B2K, *NSYNC and of course BSB) to, adorably, the soundtrack to the beloved family film Andre. (It's about a seal or something.)

Now 4 was also mentioned, which is a little depressing when you realize that as of this year we're on Now 37 and we've gone from Hanson and Blink 182 and Britney to Ke$ha and Rihanna and Mike Posner. Kids these days, I tell you.

(But seriously, Hanson's still got it.)

Anyway, my first CD was an Elvis Presley "Greatest Hits" compilation.

Yeah. So awesome.

The King made an impression on me. In fourth grade, we each had to pick a state and do a presentation about that state. I chose Mississippi because, you know, who wouldn't? Double vowels FTW. Early in my extensive research in the elementary school library, I learned that Elvis Presley was born in Mississippi before he moved to Tennessee and made a name for himself. He obviously shared my love for the double vowel states. I was smitten. In the end my state project focused exclusively on Elvis. I don't recall how my teacher felt about that but I graduated the fourth grade so I guess it was okay.

Other loves followed. Beach Boys, Spice Girls, Blues Traveler, Phish. (My parents were -- are -- hippies.) Eventually the King and I lost touch. I reached further beyond my years, to Aretha Franklin and Etta James and Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. When I was 12, I was convinced that I had been born 30-60 years too late. My friends learned the words to "Baby Got Back" and I learned the words to "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered."

I'm now older and wiser and realize that Sir Mix-a-Lot and Ella Fitzgerald are not mutually exclusive. There's room in my heart for both the Supremes and the Smashing Pumpkins. Weezer and BB King can coexist with Britney and Ke$ha.

But Elvis. Elvis was my first.

Harlan Ellison tells it how it is

Some Wednesday inspiration for writers everywhere, straight from the mouth of a literary legend.

This clip is an excerpt from a 2008 documentary about Harlan Ellison. For more information, visit the film's website.

Seventy-seven percent left behind

Good morning class! First thing's first: Check out this article, published yesterday in the New York Times.

It's not exactly good news.

The idea that only 23 percent of New York City high schoolers graduate "ready" for college is astounding. So immediately the talk turns to raising standards -- but this seems to be a superficial focus on the end result instead of a directed investment of more time and effort into understanding why the education itself isn't working. It puts the burden on teachers and students to slave over what the answers on the tests will be instead of focusing on why so many kids are failing the set standards. We aren't adjusting education to fit their needs; we're attempting to adjust objective expectations to fit a subjective situation.

These findings also call into question how the standards have changed (indeed, the article even suggests the standards will change again in reaction to these findings); quality of the standards aside, how can we hope to measure success objectively if what we're measuring is constantly shifting? We leave ourselves with no foundation, no ground to get our bearings.

The "shock and hesitation" from local officials would almost be laughable if the article didn't go on to suggest that their primary concern is that real estate value will be affected. It says volumes about the importance placed on the (indirect, more lucrative) end result of education as opposed to the actual process.

And this just seems like wishful thinking: "City education officials said the 23 percent college-ready rate was not a fair measure of how the city would do if graduation requirements were raised to a higher standard, because students would work harder to meet that new bar." Um, what are you smoking, and can I please have some? It's like we're saying, "Sure, the kids aren't meeting the lower standards, but if we raise them then they'll snap out of it and get in gear! There's no way it could backfire and in reality push kids further behind by overwhelming them even more." It's like we have no idea what we're doing.

Am I wrong? Am I overlooking something? Assuming that we like the fact that education is free and available to all in this country, this "new" problem raises the old questions that are central to the education debate: How can we manage American education by setting objective standards in a completely subjective situation? What kind of test can be a probing and comprehensive evaluation of a student's understanding of subject matter? If we can't rely on standardized testing, how do we know kids in the Bronx and Houston and Nashville are getting the same quality of education as kids in LA County and Iowa City and Youngstown? A bar is necessary; how and where do we set it, and then how do we get as many kids over it as possible?

There are far more questions than answers. But one thing is certain: Students aren't failing. The schools are.

--
UPDATE, 2:09 pm: My teaching writing professor sent this article out to our class a few days ago, but I didn't read it until after composing this post. I'm only just beginning to understand how far-reaching the context of this debate is, but I'll be really interested to see what -- if anything -- happens July 28-31 in Washington, DC. And I'm bookmarking John Taylor Gatto's 2008 essay for some light bedtime reading later this week.

Shots of Winter

I have no business owning a beautiful DSLR; at one point in college I was going to take a photojournalism class but that didn't materialize. But the light at dusk today -- combined with yet another snowfall to top off last week's blizzard -- inspired me to run out to the space behind my building and take a few shots. I'm a fan of some of the light and angles. Enjoy!

I'm running out of room to put snow.

Jack Attack

My mother (of Friday Jams fame) has gotten me hopelessly hooked on Jack White. (After I introduced her to him in the first place, I might add.) For those who don't know, 35-year-old Mr. White is being hailed as the prodigal musician of a generation. He sings, plays every instrument in the band, and was the "under 40" representative on It Might Get Loud, talking guitars and shooting the shit with U2's The Edge and Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. Kind of a big deal.

The band that introduced him to the spotlight, The White Stripes, announced their official breakup on Wednesday. According to the statement, it's not for any ill reason, but simply that both members (Jack and his ex-wife Meg) are moving on to new projects. Maybe they got sick of playing "Seven Nation Army" over...and over...and over...

It's just so damn catchy.

Happily, Jack's already got a bunch of other stuff going on. He fronts The Raconteurs, who have put out a couple of great records already, and in his newest project he's playing drums, guitar and sharing vocals with Alison Mosshart (of The Kills). My first exposure to The Dead Weather was this provocative video, called "Treat Me Like Your Mother." And yes, my mother showed it to me first.

The live version is just as good if not better. Next time Jack comes to town, who's going with me?

Come on. That's awesome.

An Historic Blizzaster

Our street on Wednesday afternoon.

I had my first snow day since junior high yesterday. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty awesome. I was stuck in my apartment with two roommates, Mr. Fidler and my cat. Luckily we had a fridge full of food and tasty beverages and no problems with power or heat, so it was basically a mid-week Saturday during which we had zero obligations or responsibilities as a result of being physically incapable of leaving the apartment. I know, tough times. We did venture out into the snow a bit:

Twenty inches of snow, and no plowing on the side streets. Sucks to be you.

Brittan leads the way to find her car.

We got 20.2 inches of snow, making this the third-largest snowstorm in the city's history. The last time we had this much snow was in 1999, with 21.6 inches. (The biggest ever storm was in '67 and dumped 23.0 inches.) Chicago Public Schools (CPS), which haven't closed since that '99 blizzard, have closed for two days straight and will likely be closed again tomorrow, making this a 5-day weekend. (Great for students, sucks for parents.) Northwestern canceled a full day of classes for only the fifth time in its 160-year history.

An abandoned cab in the middle of W. Dakin St.

Valiant effort, Mr. Cabby.

What amazes me, and what we were talking about as we wandered the post-apocalyptic scene (can you believe that cab?), was how a natural disaster like this has the capability of shutting down an entire city, but not actually injuring anyone. It wasn't just the snow -- there were 25-foot waves slamming into lakeshore and 70-mph winds blowing it all around. Some people spent the night in their cars, and hundreds of vehicles were stuck on Lake Shore Drive.

Under the el track just south of the Sheridan stop.

But for the most part the mood yesterday was jovial. There were dozens of people on the streets, walking around taking pictures and jumping in the snow. It was an historic day, and we all got to enjoy it together. We even saw one group sitting outside, in the middle of the impassable road, grilling and drinking beer. Hopefully the number of people adversely affected (lost wages, childcare, etc.) is minor compared to people that got to act like 12-year-olds for the day. Though I'd wager a good number of shoulders are sore today from digging out cars and front steps from under the 20+-inch thick snow blanket.

To top it all off, we got to experience THUNDERSNOW. Epic. Who wants to make bets on the birth rate spiking in about nine months?

Oh yeah, and we did eventually find Brittan's car. Hopefully she doesn't need it anytime soon. Like, you know, before spring.