Banned Book (Band books???)
So I'm online poking around and I come across a website called Office for Intellectual Freedom: Free People Read Freely. So check it out. The page I linked to shows the top ten banned books of 2006. Of them, I've read two. The two authors happen to be in my top ten favorite authors ever. Now I gotta read the rest of the list!!!
The two I've read, btw, are Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher (quickly turning into one of my heroes for the amazing way he writes), and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. I'm currently reading the sequel to that book, even as we speak.
Well not literally as we speak, but pretty damn close.
So, I was in another class earlier this week (some intro to family science something or other) and we were discussing Robert Gould's false assumptions on life (Hammy you should probably recognize these). The idea that he had (he worked in a mental institution and realized that there tended to be a lot of common threads in the problems people were having with their lives). The problem, he said, were that there are these four common false assumptions that we make about life that get disproved as we grow up. Number 1 was something like "I'll always be my parent's baby and their home will always be mine" or something like that. I don't know about you, but I sort realized that more than a decade ago, if not more.
Now the point of this whole thing is that one of the false assumptions was "There is no such thing as real death or evil." And this guy said that you're supposed to realize the falseness of this statement sometime in your 30's.
And so *lol* like right out loud I go, "That's bullshit." And my prof's like, "what?" And I said, "that's complete and utter moronic bull. I realized that life sucked when I was 11 (or possibly younger, really, but I didn't have it defined nearly as well as I did when I was 11).
The prof says, well, were you a precocious child? No, I'm a late bloomer. I figure everything out late. But the fact that I knew life sucked ever before I became a teenager doesn't seem like it should be that big of a shocker.
Then, as I thought about it some more, I came to another realization. True, I figured out that life sucked in the 6th grade. But I didn't realize that you could do anything about it until college.
So now I have a new philosophy: True, life is hard, it hurts and it is scary. And on occasion it also smells really bad. So what do you do? Learn to make your own air freshener.
You Know You're a Band Geek When cont . . .
126. You can sit or hold hands with any band member of the opposite sex, but it doesn't mean anything - you're just cold.
127. You have an underground stash of hand warmers.
128. People call where the band room is "The Band Cave."
129. The band director makes you do push-ups for playing "Iron Man" too often.
130. You wish you were at school on the weekends because you forgot to bring your instrument home.
131. You compose music in all of your classes and during lunch.
132. You build a website just for your band.
133. You start humming a show tune from 3 years ago and your friends join in with their respective parts.
134. On band trips (or anywhere), you and your friends play "Guess that Song" - one person hums a song the band has played and the others guess what it is.
135. You've had band camp nightmares.
136. You sit with your band director during band trips. Or on the city bus.
137. The only reason you're looking forward to Spring Break is because that's when the band trip is.
138. Watching DCI turns you on.
139. You stay after school or during lunch to play around with songs with your other band friends.
140. You consider your band director one of your closest friends.
141. You don't like people because they don't like band.
142. The ring tone on your phone is an excerpt from your show.
143. You enjoy going to early/late band. Who cares if it's at the crack of dawn, it's the highlight of your day.
144. You weep tears of joy when you get a Superior. It's kind of like Halle Berry at the Oscars. Only for a more legitimate reason.
145. You refer to other schools as "Oh yeah, that's the one with the band that played _______," or "We beat their band."
146. You email random people you don't with "You know you're a band dork" jokes. YEAH!!!
147. You go into a field and wonder why there are football players there.
148. You compare yourself to others based on chair placements in band/regionals/all-state.
149. You sometimes why people don't also say "Sousa-ma-phone!" (And here the author made a side note: "Psh, I don't know what's wrong with the people in THIS guy's band . . . It's complete with 'Clar-a-ma-net!' and 'Tuba-mab-aaa' in my neck of the woods.)
150. You and your friends try to launch a full investigation to find out who put graffit in the bathroom closest to the band room.
Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?
Because they kept on saying, "Bach Bach Bach!"
The two I've read, btw, are Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher (quickly turning into one of my heroes for the amazing way he writes), and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. I'm currently reading the sequel to that book, even as we speak.
Well not literally as we speak, but pretty damn close.
So, I was in another class earlier this week (some intro to family science something or other) and we were discussing Robert Gould's false assumptions on life (Hammy you should probably recognize these). The idea that he had (he worked in a mental institution and realized that there tended to be a lot of common threads in the problems people were having with their lives). The problem, he said, were that there are these four common false assumptions that we make about life that get disproved as we grow up. Number 1 was something like "I'll always be my parent's baby and their home will always be mine" or something like that. I don't know about you, but I sort realized that more than a decade ago, if not more.
Now the point of this whole thing is that one of the false assumptions was "There is no such thing as real death or evil." And this guy said that you're supposed to realize the falseness of this statement sometime in your 30's.
And so *lol* like right out loud I go, "That's bullshit." And my prof's like, "what?" And I said, "that's complete and utter moronic bull. I realized that life sucked when I was 11 (or possibly younger, really, but I didn't have it defined nearly as well as I did when I was 11).
The prof says, well, were you a precocious child? No, I'm a late bloomer. I figure everything out late. But the fact that I knew life sucked ever before I became a teenager doesn't seem like it should be that big of a shocker.
Then, as I thought about it some more, I came to another realization. True, I figured out that life sucked in the 6th grade. But I didn't realize that you could do anything about it until college.
So now I have a new philosophy: True, life is hard, it hurts and it is scary. And on occasion it also smells really bad. So what do you do? Learn to make your own air freshener.
You Know You're a Band Geek When cont . . .
126. You can sit or hold hands with any band member of the opposite sex, but it doesn't mean anything - you're just cold.
127. You have an underground stash of hand warmers.
128. People call where the band room is "The Band Cave."
129. The band director makes you do push-ups for playing "Iron Man" too often.
130. You wish you were at school on the weekends because you forgot to bring your instrument home.
131. You compose music in all of your classes and during lunch.
132. You build a website just for your band.
133. You start humming a show tune from 3 years ago and your friends join in with their respective parts.
134. On band trips (or anywhere), you and your friends play "Guess that Song" - one person hums a song the band has played and the others guess what it is.
135. You've had band camp nightmares.
136. You sit with your band director during band trips. Or on the city bus.
137. The only reason you're looking forward to Spring Break is because that's when the band trip is.
138. Watching DCI turns you on.
139. You stay after school or during lunch to play around with songs with your other band friends.
140. You consider your band director one of your closest friends.
141. You don't like people because they don't like band.
142. The ring tone on your phone is an excerpt from your show.
143. You enjoy going to early/late band. Who cares if it's at the crack of dawn, it's the highlight of your day.
144. You weep tears of joy when you get a Superior. It's kind of like Halle Berry at the Oscars. Only for a more legitimate reason.
145. You refer to other schools as "Oh yeah, that's the one with the band that played _______," or "We beat their band."
146. You email random people you don't with "You know you're a band dork" jokes. YEAH!!!
147. You go into a field and wonder why there are football players there.
148. You compare yourself to others based on chair placements in band/regionals/all-state.
149. You sometimes why people don't also say "Sousa-ma-phone!" (And here the author made a side note: "Psh, I don't know what's wrong with the people in THIS guy's band . . . It's complete with 'Clar-a-ma-net!' and 'Tuba-mab-aaa' in my neck of the woods.)
150. You and your friends try to launch a full investigation to find out who put graffit in the bathroom closest to the band room.
Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?
Because they kept on saying, "Bach Bach Bach!"