It's a new day...
...and it's beautiful here in Madison. I got up around 9:30 and proceeded to shower and then head down State Street to see what's around. I did some shopping, wandering in and out of clothing stores and even a really nice kitchen accessories store. I also went to a hippy/new age type place and spent a lot of time looking at crystals and books and incense, There was also one of those high-end soap stores with all the ridiculously fragrant stuff where I ended up with some wonderful almond soap. There's nothing quite like high quality soap - I have a weakness for that.
Last night I did timekeeping and scorekeeping at two bouts at the Brink. Got to see Columbus WB do their thing again and Scott completely owned with a poem about the Virginia Tech shooter. When someone takes a subject that everyone has done badly and puts a different spin on it that really works, it makes me want to shake the shouters on the other teams and say "look! This is how good writing is done, unlike your hackneyed, cliched shit." With Charlotte and Detroit in that same bout, there was plenty of cliche-ridden crap, bad writing and shouting trying to pass for emoting. However, there was also a nice persona piece from 6 is 9 about an older married man with dementia written as a love poem. Of course it should have gotten a better score than so many others.
I'd also like to say that if I did a team piece with someone about "I want to fall in love like black people" and threw in stupid stereotypes like "we'll go on Maury and I'll find out you're my baby daddy" and shit like that, I'd be vilified, and rightfully so. I'm still not sure why it's a high-scoring, heavily praised thing when someone does that "let's fall in love like white people" poem. It went right up there with the man's poem about being an aborted fetus in my list of things that would have made me say "you're an asshole" to people if I wasn't doing score/time-keeping.
In the slam community, if we're white, we're expected to also be guilty and liberals. But when someone wants to haul out some white, middle-class stereotypes and sling them around, it's hilarious to them and their friends. At least when they did the piece about stereotypes about gay people, they tried to ameliorate it somewhat by writing a lesbian character as a counterpoint/other side. But when it comes to just being straight and white, it's okay to make fun of us whenever and not be sorry. Maybe if the poem had actually been funny or interesting, I would have thought it had an artistic point, but that was just gratuitous suck.
Judging from the scores, the semis and finals will just be a whole lot more gratuitous suck. Onward, ho.
Last night I did timekeeping and scorekeeping at two bouts at the Brink. Got to see Columbus WB do their thing again and Scott completely owned with a poem about the Virginia Tech shooter. When someone takes a subject that everyone has done badly and puts a different spin on it that really works, it makes me want to shake the shouters on the other teams and say "look! This is how good writing is done, unlike your hackneyed, cliched shit." With Charlotte and Detroit in that same bout, there was plenty of cliche-ridden crap, bad writing and shouting trying to pass for emoting. However, there was also a nice persona piece from 6 is 9 about an older married man with dementia written as a love poem. Of course it should have gotten a better score than so many others.
I'd also like to say that if I did a team piece with someone about "I want to fall in love like black people" and threw in stupid stereotypes like "we'll go on Maury and I'll find out you're my baby daddy" and shit like that, I'd be vilified, and rightfully so. I'm still not sure why it's a high-scoring, heavily praised thing when someone does that "let's fall in love like white people" poem. It went right up there with the man's poem about being an aborted fetus in my list of things that would have made me say "you're an asshole" to people if I wasn't doing score/time-keeping.
In the slam community, if we're white, we're expected to also be guilty and liberals. But when someone wants to haul out some white, middle-class stereotypes and sling them around, it's hilarious to them and their friends. At least when they did the piece about stereotypes about gay people, they tried to ameliorate it somewhat by writing a lesbian character as a counterpoint/other side. But when it comes to just being straight and white, it's okay to make fun of us whenever and not be sorry. Maybe if the poem had actually been funny or interesting, I would have thought it had an artistic point, but that was just gratuitous suck.
Judging from the scores, the semis and finals will just be a whole lot more gratuitous suck. Onward, ho.