Sure, Sesame Street taught all of us our letters and accompanying sounds. And who can forget "The Count?" Or "Monsterpeiece Theatre?" And honestly, isn't it about time that Elmo had his own blog?
But there's this theory in education (editor's note: The author's chosen profession in college was elementary education. Got pretty damn near a master's in it. Fairly early on she figured out it would be best for the kids if she bowed out.) Anyway, there's this theory that I'll call the Sesame Street Effect. It goes like this:
Sesame Street is produced in two-year-old-attention-span-long sound bites, as are many popular kiddie programs, and this only does not encourage the lengthening of attention spans, but actually harms it and keeps it short. Other more wholesome activities, like playing (translate: making a godforsaken mess) or say, painting (translate: twice as long to get the stuff out and clean up than the kid actually paints) actually encourage longer attention spans. (In whom, I was always skeptical.)
The same could be said of video games (I was on a site last night that was about video games and so much like video games... hard to explain, even for me. Each sentence was in a different color. Difficult to read, except if they eye is well-trained to follow electronic pulses, you know, like those that come from your basic PS2 game...)
Well, let me say that the whole thing reeked of Chicken or the Egg to me in college, and always has.
Now I think there might be something to it.
Take, for example, your basic novelist; novel in process.
Throw in a blog.
Or two.
Or ten.
I constantly extole the virtues of my blog. You, my audience, force me to write; the very format of the blog encourages me to write daily - which is a good thing. It has changed my life from my life into a medium (I used to be an artist, too) from which posts - The Written Word (holy grail of us writerly types) - are born.
This is a Good Thing. However...
I currently have five Word files up right now, consisting of my second and third novels. It's a series, so I'm constantly referring back and forth.
What am I doing?
Writing my second post of the day.
6 comments:
Is there a correlation between the amount of alcohol you drink and the amount of parenthesis you use? Just a theory... this post seems rather sporadic and ADD-like, and if you pay attention closely, I think you may written more in parenthesis than in actual sentences. Not a criticism, just an observation. Anyways, if you have drifted far far away from sobriety on this fine night, cheers i say unto you.
Greg just doesn't understand parenthesis are all about love. It's a hug for (special) words, they give so much character to a sentence..
On topic- The blogging has certainly helped me set a scene with writing. Reading others relate day to day events then sharing my own. It's definitely helped though I won't be showing my earlier "less fluid" writing any time soon.
Yes, exactly. My parentheses are (hugs) and they mean that I love you, readers! Especially for comments. I'm the commentbox's bitch.
Elmo killed Sesame Street, and not only that he raped the dead body and threw into sewage. Ok, maybe not all that, but ever since the induction of "Elmo's World" Sesame Street has been declining in awesome. (I love awesome as a noun... ain't it great?) He turned the show from educational and fun to cutesy child pandering and iconic to indie kids. Anything iconic to indie kids is stupid by definition.
The show used to have one of the better attention-span-boosters of all childrens television programs, what with its plot structure and charecter development and what not. Then we entered the age of Teletubbies, in which all childrens programs had to conform to being benign and trite pieces about nothing at all, turning future generations into ignorami. I wholeheartedly encourage the teaching of children through other methods of learning than television, especially now, but I think it is still a medium that is important for children and can teach them very well, in moderation. Therefore, down with Teletubbies, down with Dora the Explora, down with whatever the fuck that show is with the floating balloon demons, and, most of all, FUCK ELMO!!!
What about parents that allow their kids to paint, but then clean up the mess?
I have resisted for some time, but I'm glad I started reading your blog. It is much in the way of hilarity.
-Thomas
Jack... sweetie... you're depressed. Now go on to bed and have sweet dreams about you know what.
FF, yeah, yeah, yeah, your kids are good sleepers. They're perfect, period. And it ain't sesame street, it's YOU!
Thomas, you resisted moi?? Whatever for?? Well, glad to have you aboard.
Post a Comment