Game Over

Totally felt clever writing that title.

Fifteen years later...
Supposing I don't do anything absolutely stupid to get me killed, Ill be thirty five. Going by how my dad has aged, Ill look the same for the next two decades. Maybe Ill have random gray hairs (already have one!), but Ill still be immature. I have no idea what Ill be doing but Ill probably be doing whatever I feel like doing disregarding repercussions. I don't see myself being married unless someone dares me to do so. Essentially immature and always nerdy, I'm sure I'll be nostalgic for the days in which my future and present characteristics were accepted as normal.

The only question is what I'll vaguely remember but embellish anyway. Judging by the impact these works have on me right now, I would wager on The Wire, Blue Velvet, Straight Outta Compton, Lolita, Highway 61 and The Pornographic Imagination. Its not just the works themselves that have had an impact on me but in the way they have been studied.

The Wire may be the smartest TV show and the best TV I've seen since the "Company Man" episode of Heroes season 1 (believe it or not Heroes was actually good at some point). The way the content is treated with such unflinching maturity will stay with me, and I plan to continue the series all the way up to the end. This may seem easy but the show requires so much time invested and focus that I can't imagine it will be similar at all to when I went through four seasons of scrubs two summers ago.

Blue Velvet blew my mind. Not because I thought it was brilliant, but because I had no clue what was going on and it was the biggest mindfuck since I decided to watch that wretched Neon Genesis Evangelion. Although my personal opinion of Blue Velvet is rather blank, I surprised myself when angered is response to Ebert's inane review of it. I came to appreciate Blue Velvet the more we studied it and that may have to be a method I employ in the future to works I don't have a real reaction to.

I totally brag to my friends I get to study Straight Outta Compton and Highway 61 Revisited in this class. Continuing to challenge the "Literature" label, I'm glad we got to take a good look at these works. I'm especially happy I finally got to hear other students talking about a rap record that doesn't have Lil Wayne in it even if they had to. I only wish we studied Illmatic or a A Tribe Called Quest album as well.

Lolita may be my best remembered work we've done. I can easily see myself rereading Lolita several times in the next few years just like I've done with other novels. I wonder how the experience will differ from reading to reading. I'll continue to explore this work. I think "On The Pornographic Imagination" will be something I'll eventually go back to and read. Maybe it will be this summer. I think some of the arguments made are something to apply to other areas. Also, how can I just forget a long argument for pornography. I'll probably show it to my parents and tell them it was totally okay for me to watch porn in 7th grade because it can be real literature.

Going through these works in a personal way and then discussing them with my peers is what will, in part, keep some of these works memorable. Having to twitter may be selectively forgotten but the blogging won't. I'll definitely remember reading posts by classmates that were often well written. Not sure if I'll be a great reader by then. Maybe I'll be able to read an ee cummings poem and actually know what it is talking about.