Zombie...

Again I wrote this senior year of high school.

A Picky Zombie's Poem:

"Oh the starry void, as empty as my head region!
I am, only one, of the countless undead legion.

These restless, lonely nights in which I meander,
Searching always for that precious head, free of dander.

From which I might chance to break apart,
from which I might chance to begin to start,

To slurp upon thy twitching brain.

Thee End."

Beakman...

This was written a while ago for a Forum Post for school.

When I was snot-nosed little kid, I used to watch a show called Beakman’s World. If Bill Nye (The Science Guy) stuck his finger in a light socket, dyed his lab coat green, recruited an assistant, befriended a disgruntled man in a rat suit, had penguin puppets for fans of the show, and put over 5000 sound effects into each half hour of his show, he would be Beakman, the main character of Beakman’s World. If I remember correctly, the only time I seriously used the information fed through this show was when I tried to appear intelligent by tricking a friend with the question with “What is the largest organ in the human body?” When my 8 year old friend inevitably did not know the answer, I replied that it was in fact, our skin.

The show usually begins with Beakman’s assistant picking a few letters out (all of which have questions on a variety of topics). Then Beakman answers the questions through demonstrations, animations, or other visual aids. It is fueled by these letters, sound effects, energetic actors, animations, quick cut-away shots, and extremely bad puns.

The relevance of this show is mocked by the show’s own opening and ending penguin puppets, Don and Herb. They live in the South Pole, and watch every Beakman episode. And what do two penguins living in Antarctica need to watch Beakman for? Do they really need to know how hair grows, especially since theu do not have any hair? Will it change their daily lives to know that a bootlace worm can grow to about a hundred feet long? The relevance of the information apparently parodies itself by showing that even penguins watch it, and you should too. They don’t need this information, neither do you, but we will watch it anyway.

Although the show is based around Beakman’s answering of children’s questions, the show itself still does not bypass Postman’s theory. There is no necessary sequential order to the episodes, as they move on to new topics to keep the children interested. The show does not return to a subject once it has been done, and because of this an intellectual discourse cannot be achieved. Say for instance if Timmy watches Beakman explain how hair grows, has a question about the process, and sends a letter in, it will not be aired because Beakman has already touched on how hair grows. This follows Postmans continuity law of televison.

Beakman’s sole purpose is to explain things out, in a simple, easy to follow manner so that people watching will know some facts on the layers of skin or the sensitivity of an elephants trunk. You are left with a feeling of understanding these trivial facts, and as such are not encouraged to ask questions. There is no feeling of perplexity, the second Postman law.

The third law, avoidance of exposition is also served in this show. The anti-hero of this show, Lester (the man in the rat suit) constantly objects to Beakman’s explanations, usually offering up a nonsensical explanation of his own. Lester is portrayed as a smelly, disgusting, obnoxious fool so automatically his contributions are known to be false to the audience and therefore Beakman and his assistant stand uncontested in the show.

Beakman’s World was cancelled in by the CBS network in favor of a line-up of non-educational cartoons (the cartoons that do not try to teach but simply entertain) and for years they reigned. The slight glimmer of hope, brought about by Beakman’s cancellation, the hope that TV might return to it’s entertaining junk and stay there has been destroyed. Beakman is back. The FCC has tightened it’s requirements on Educational and Informational shows, and Fox has returned Beakman’s World this year to again entertain and educate kids. Once again networks trot out “Educational” shows which severely threaten our public discourse.

Children...

This is the first draft of the first part of the children's story.

"Sun-li was proud of her book bag. Other students had book bags that had cartoon characters on them. But not Sun-li.

She took school serious, and her book bag showed just how serious she was.
Her book bag had pockets and compartments and organizers out the wazoo. It had not one, but THREE, separate sections. It even had a snazzy pencil case attached to it. Her book bag was professional.

It was just like the ones the high-school kids had.

One afternoon Sun-li was finishing her homework, as she did everyday, when the other kids were playing in the playground across the street. Among her piles of textbooks and composition notebooks, Sun-li was comfortable. She was happy. She looked out her window at the playground, full of children laughing. She didn’t need them.

Why would she need a see-saw, when she had a ruler? A ruler does more anyways. You can measure with a ruler, you can draw straight lines with a ruler. All a see-saw does is make you go up and down and get sick from going up and down. Where’s the fun in that?

Her mom appeared in the doorway to her room.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go outside? It’s such a nice day, and you’ll have lots of time to finish your homework later,” said the mom to her daughter.

“Why would I want to go out there? I’m happy here,” said the girl, pulling her books towards her.

The mother sighed and left.

Sun-li sighed too, and placed her homework in her bag. But she didn’t see the pair of glittering eyes peering out from the darkness of her book bag.

The next day at school her teacher began to collect the homework as the children lined up to go to recess. Sun-li reached into her book bag and where her homework always was, there was nothing. “I must have left it on my desk at home. Sorry Mrs. Jackson,” said Sun-li."

Waiting...

Waiting for the Southbound subway yesterday I saw this blur of dark grey scuttle past my feet. At first I thought, "Oh my, a roach just crawled past me." But then I saw the shape out of the corner of my eye and my infamous curious nature kicked in. The scuttling figure crawled under the metal spaces of the trash can, so I waited beside it. People must have thought I was crazy, staring at a trash can for five minutes. Eventually a baby mouse peeked it's head out. Immediately I was smitten. An adorable, dirt grey, baby mouse was frantically scared and desperately confused. He must have gotten lost. He kept running around always going back to the trash can.

Before this, I was mostly alone on the subway's platform, but people began coming down to wait for the sub as well. Two women sat down on the bench that was near the mouse's refuge, the trash can. I considered warning them that the mouse was running around, about a foot away from them, but decided against it. At this point there was about 8 people waiting near this lost mouse. No one noticed, except me. I tend to have a habit of noticing things other people don't.

There's signs all over CCP that say "No Card Playing" but everyone I've asked have never seen them. There is this little pink toy soldier that has been sitting on the ground at my bus stop but no one has moved him for 2 months now. Tangent over.

Finally one of the women sitting on the bench pointed at the mouse, and went "Ewww". Which thoroughly freaked out the - I hesitate to bestow the title of woman upon it - person she was sitting next to, as it thought the mouse was on it. Much funny jumping up, shaking, and cursing. It was actually running away from them, not on them or near them, but still they were grossed out by this young specimen of mousehood. It must be a sad life to be a subway mouse, poor thing. I wanted to take it home, and I would have. The only reason I didn't was that mice contract diseases easily and tend to bite when frightened. I've had rabies shots before, they are not fun. Especially when a cute doctor has to stick ten thousand needles in various comprising places on your body.

When my train finally came I didn't want to leave it. I was scared someone would step on it, like in "The Green Mile", and there was no big prisoner to heal this little baby mouse. I looked for him today, but I couldn't find him. I hope he found his way home.