On & On Constructing Beauty

"In the face of all the horror, the small-minded stupidity, the endless bloody wars, and inevitable death, people have gone on and on constructing things of beauty."

- Kieran Egan. Teaching as Story Telling. The Althouse Press: London, 1986 pg 109

Have a safe and Happy Halloween Everyone!

Story Plays to the Universal Desire

"Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns. Story plays to the universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations."

- Robert McKee. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 346

This is My Hit

"What happened to KRS-1's philosophy?

When did hip-hop become hypocrisy?

Consuming flock of sheep - that's society.

We need to change our media immediately.

They breathing shallow words, you gonna swallow what you heard?

Who's leading the leaders, who follows followers?

The world is a pitch for corporate advertising.

My thoughts ain't a bitch switching commercializing

Sky is falling, the earth is erupting

Don't believe everything you hear kid trust me

Analyze. Gotta question, ask it

Or be a market pitch for a specific demographic

Fourteen and a girl, you're the number one target in the world

Question even me gonna believe a catchy hook

Have I got substance?

I don't know take a look."

- Kyprios "This is My Hit" from the album "Say Something..."

It's Enough

"But there are sometimes in my life where being me, right now, where I am, is just like, enough."

- Angela on My So-Called Life

Do Just Half

"You've got to pat attention to the fundamentals. You have to work hard. You have to study. You have to pay attention to real things in life. If you do just half of what your parents tell you, you'll probably be twice as far ahead."

- Tom Brokaw

Stop at the Surface

"In life our eyes tend to stop at the surface. We’re so consumed by our own needs, conflicts, and daydreams that we rarely manage to take a step back and coolly observe what’s going on inside other human beings."

- McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 254

We Need Story

"We need other people’s well-composed stories and insights to free us from our own habits, and we also need to see that we can read consciously, that there is a conversation between literature and life, our life."

- Joseph Gold. Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 99