четвер, 27 липня 2017 р.

ESSAY ABOUT VIOLENCE: TOPICS, OUTLINE, TIPS

There are many ways to define what is violence. Expression of aggression, abuse of force, means to an end, etc. Let's stick to the most common definition by World Health Organization -  "intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation". As broad as it gets - this definition at the very least covers all the potential means and sources of violence in one long sentence. However, it's just words that only signify parts of the concepts. They don't give any substance. And that's a problem.
Let's elaborate.

What violence means?

Generally speaking, violence means that a person or group have intentions to use physical, verbal or political (in broader terms) force or authority against somebody else because of certain seemingly justifying reasons against the wishes of abused. Context is very important in classifying violent acts. One act of offense can be an expression of unmotivated rage, while the other can be an act of revenge or preventive measure. There is also whole other dimension regarding misuse or abuse of authority. Level of violence is distinguished by its aftermath - amount of harm or injuries applied to the victims.
What is troubling with such definition is the ways it can be turned around depending on the context. Look at how criminals are often trying to minimize or get away with certain elements of the crimes they have committed. There is always a load of circumstantial evidence that can roll the cards upside down and backwards with a little help of certain rhetorical contortions.
Another uneven element is how acts of violence are dependable are viewed from the outside points of view. There are numerous examples of how media misinterpreted certain accidents in order to achieve some sort of sensationalist appeal which will in turn keep the audience attention on the wrong elements.

How to write about violence?

Why it is important to understand the concept of violence? Because it is not limited to the common definition of getting abused verbally or physically. It goes far beyond. Violence is one of the defining and utterly pitiful characteristics of human being. The one that have been plaguing its existence from the very beginning. Needless to say that it is the premier sources of all the troubles in the world. One wants something at others expanse. Sometimes that fellow gets punished. But far more often - not. Sometimes the perpetrator is even regarded as a victim of circumstances and even hailed as a hero. But that's all surface. There is always more inside and it is important to correctly define and describe all the undercurrents that lead to the act of violence.
One of the main problems with writing about violence is deliberate adjusting of the details. Call it "abuse of wishful thinking". Because the majority of cases has its evidence shut behind the closed doors - there is always a temptation to make up the missing pieces with some sort of conspiracy theory. This leads to massive misinterpretation of motivation for the actions and thus obfuscation of the initial intentions. This is too very common in the modern media.
Another problem is prejudice. It is true that usually the prime suspect is the perpetrator. But that doesn't mean that the writer needs to imply to that without referencing to the solid evidence of one's actions.

There is also a big trap in form of explaining violence. Where to start with that one? Before you start writing about violent act - you need to clearly define several elements:
  • Who did it? Against whom?
  • What kind of relations both sides had?
  • What was the source of a conflict (if any)?
  • What was the driving force behind the act?
  • What were the circumstances under which the act of violence was performed?
  • What kind of damage was done?
  • What is the aftermath of event (direct and long term)?
But there's one but:
One can't simply write about violence. This subject is always a sign of something bigger hiding in the shadows. Violence never occurs at random. It is systematic. It is an entire institution that oppresses victims and offenders in equal measure. Writing an essay about violence never means writing about violence per se. It means you write about circumstances under which it happened and its consequences. You need to explain the mindset of the perpetrator - his motivation behind the actions and role in a bigger scheme of things. You need to describe the environment in which act of violence occured. Finally, you need to define what kind of violence was applied.

Anyway, understanding violence is important in order to understand the inner-workings of our society. Violence surrounds us and it needs to be prevented by all means necessary. Writing about violence - explaining its origin, motivation, intentions, etc - is one of the ways to solve the problem.

ESSAY ABOUT INTERNET: TOPICS, OUTLINE, TIPS

Internet is something we don't really appreciate. That's why there's a need for a proper essay about internet. The one that can sort out things little bit. Because it is such an integral part of our lives - we simply don't understand its importance and influence on us as a species. Ever since World Wide Web graced our lives with its all-reaching omnipresence - it became impossible to even think that there's some sort of life that is at the very least not documented in the realm of the almighty, all-knowing, all-giving Web. There is but it doesn't matter because there are so many things to discover - it's pointless to complain about some minor issues.
But there's one bit of but hanging. How to write about Internet? What is the best way to describe this ever-present space? There are numerous possibilities to explore certain themes.

The best way to start is to write an essay about advantages of Internet. Basically, there are three major improvements made to our lives by Internet.
First of all, Internet made knowledge easy to access. It made possible to listen, watch, read and wholly experience things you otherwise had limited possibilities to try. You can find obscure textbooks from the past, you can watch dissections of significant works of art - bit by bit, you can listen to the thoughts and opinions of greatest living minds, etc.
Second is communication. Social networks, blog services, e-mail services made connections to the other people fast and easy. You can share your thoughts easily through a variety of platforms. You can leave a trace of your life in a form of a blog (textual, video, audio - combined, anyway you want). You can read about private lives of others from all around the world. You can reconnect with people you lost trace of years ago.
Third and possibly most important deserves to a separate essay - about internet of things. Thanks to various services - such as Amazon and EBay - you can buy whatever you want. You can sell your own things; you can do the barter; you can exchange things. You can even help to improve somebody else's products.

There's also the fourth of sorts. But it is doubtful it ever will be called an advantage. Writing an essay about internet memes - is inevitable in this day and age.
Memes surround us. It is easy to produce, easy to follow and easy to share form of expressing opinions on a certain subject matter. Basically, anything can be turned into a meme - whether it is a hapless mispronunciation of certain words by Commander-in-Chief or delightfully unmitigated bits of nonsense by otherwise respectable piece of medium. Anyway - it is a kind of weather report of human overmind and public opinion.

While thinking about the topic. Consider a sinister downside of World Wide Web. Internet is a cesspool of criminal activities. Writing an essay about internet piracy is always a chance to discover something truly detestable. The thing is - piracy of intellectual property is something to be reckoned with on Internet.
While its defenders try to redefine piracy as "sharing information" - it is not entirely true. It is simply taking away a piece of bread from the creator. Because of flaws in legislation - it is almost impossible to define what kind of "sharing information" is legal and illegal since the piece in question can be shared and used by various people with different motivations.

Privacy issue is another problem that plagues Internet. Essay about internet privacy is almost certain attention grabber - whether it is a depiction of your own perspective or reconsideration of certain undercurrents.
It is a well-known fact that all private information we share on our numerous accounts is not exactly secure from hacking and leaking. Several years ago a group of hackers published a book that contained several millions of login names and passwords of users of popular professional network LinkedIn. It was made possible because of internal flaws of data encryption.

Another saddening fact is that government has even more control over the activities of its citizen thanks to their willingness to share personal information on various services. Writing an essay about internet censorship is another winning opportunity. There's always some kind of oppression going on in the Internet. For example, YouTube is flagging and sometimes downright banning LGBTQ-themed videos. Or another example, Google excludes certain sites from its search simply because there was a surge of caution that those sites are potentially dangerous. This is ever more apparent in Russia where level of state control over Internet is unprecedented and used to oppress and deceive its citizens in ever-tangled ways.

However, all these possibilities are useless if you don't dive deep into the theme. The easiest way to do it is of course a Google search. Stay tuned.

WAYS TO WORK HARDER AND GET RESULTS






In these uptight times - quality of work is the most important thing. There are many ways to achieve proper results. Most of them involve immense amount of stress. But there are other ways to do it. While some of the advices you may find on Internet may seem a little bit all over the place or deeply irrelevant to your situation - one thing you can take from them is not to trust them at all. Which isn't helping. It's a problem of the modern Internet writing. But it doesn't solve the problem with getting the desired result.
I've spent some time studying all those tips and tricks and made my own thing to help you. Here's a short selection of ways to work harder.

***

 0. Stop thinking about it


The easiest and most effective way to work harder and get high results is to stop being obsessed with it. That's an easy thing to do. But it is so tempting to think "geez, how I'm going to do that!? I wonder how those folks get it - I feel wretched with all that fuss...". Don't do that, don't even think it's possible - ignore it at all costs. It's a rabbit hole that wastes your time and gets you demotivated the hard way.
OK. This one was one is not really an advice. More of a warning. But this one definitely is.

1. Find more time


Time management is the thing you need to learn as soon as possible. If not - sooner or later, you'll get into beloved trouble of not being able to catch up with all things happening. Studying means you need to know how to spend your time the right way. That's why you should always reconsider what things you should do when.
In short, this means - you can get up a bit earlier and get to bed a bit later. Or do something when you're having lunch. Basically, there's whole lot of time left in between your activities. That makes several spare hours to utilize. Think about all those moments that are basically action-free. That's where the treasure trove is.

2. Cut the crap


If you analyze what are you doing over the course of a single day - you will find out that there a lot of stuff that makes no sense. I mean - what the hell with these nose picking? Come on! Jokes aside - why are you trying to do everything nice? There are things you need to do as close to perfect as possible - your thesis, for example. And then - there are those foolish things like making your notes look nice. Notes are throwaway materials, its purpose is to contain legible information, not to look nice. Get over it. And that's just the tip of the mountain. You can come up with other examples on your own.

3. Keep the pace lean


The faster you work - the more stuff you get done. There's a significant problem with keeping quality that way, but otherwise - it's a nice thing to do. Even if you have somewhere around 8-9 working hours - you don't actually work all the time. You spent a lion's share of that time in-between actions. This can be solved by a proper time management.
Find out when is your up time and down time - and work out your schedule around it. This way - you will get a chance to pack as much things as possible in a short periods of time - so-called "power hours".
Action-wise it's all about the right balance between mechanical and creative activities. For example, during this section you collect the data. And then - you analyze it. And then - you write it down. Next - you're formatting the text, fixing the mistakes and rereading it in every possible way. And then - you skip forwards to another bout of data collecting. And so on and so forth.
Another important thing is avoidance of distractions. Few software fixers can help you with that. Personally, I just shut down all the unnecessary programs through the task managers leaving only the worthy (it is to be said in a very deep Tulsa Doom voice).

4. Take chances - be competitive

They say "dare to fail". And that's true. You should push yourself towards the limit in terms of exploration of the topic. You should make difference. You should make it new. Otherwise - you're working around the clock and doing your time.
Even if your attempt is a little bit abortive and falling apart in every possible way - it is better to fail that way than to produce a piece of insignificant, by-the-book garbage. There's nothing disrespectful in "at least I've tried". It's a beginning of "try - fail - try again - fail better"-routine. Which is the way to perfect yourself.
The thing is - every possibility to do so lies in the foundation of the topic. You just need to do a thorough research of the matter in order to find out untraced tendencies.

5. Stay open to the New


Consider this a cheap shot. If you want to work hard and get super-duper results - you need to stay in a fresh mindset. And that means you need to be open to new ideas that can emerge from anywhere. There's no need in being hostile to the concepts. You just need to consider them. It takes a moment or two. What comes next is a mystery - it can go both ways. Either it will drastically change the way you perceive the topic or it will add nothing to the table and you will move on as if nothing happened.
Anyway, it is important to consider even the most outlandish ideas. Because somewhere in the midst of nonsense is hidden some sort of a game-changing know-how.

***

That's all for today. Hope you're all enjoyed.

ESSAY ABOUT MOVIES: TOPICS, OUTLINE, TIPSEDIT

Writing an essay about movies is likely to be the hardest task you will ever take while writing an essay. Really. While the same goes on default with other arts - there is a difference with writing about the art of cinema. It's astoundingly collaborative form of art. Films are made by hundreds and thousands of men (thus long and unbearable end credits where literally everyone who ever worked on film is spotted). General idea of a film transforms from the mind of a producer, screenwriter, director, cinematographer, actors and other people involved in production. It is in constant change. This means the majority of the meanings you may read from the film are incidental and circumstantial.
And this may turn simple analysis of the piece into a nightmarish ride into the obscure unknown. Without a trace of pretense, you may stray so far away from the film's intended message that the resulting essay will be itself an original piece of art on tangent based on the source material.
But that's just a warning. It's always fun to write an essay about movies.

Types of essays about movies

One rather curious thing about film writing is that it can be about anything. You can take one element out of the movie and analyze it the ground zero with a variety of tools. You can dissect through the historical point of view. Or immolate by the looking glass of the artistic intent. With all that said - it all narrows down to several types. Basically there are five types of essays dedicated to the art of film:
  1. Analysis of the film - including its themes, use of artistic techniques, etc.;
  2. Analysis of particular element or elements of the film - things like actors acting style, use of sound or lightning, a dissection of references to other works of art, etc. For example essay about horror movies tend to review psychological aspects of depiction of horror;
  3. Comparison of film and its source material - good old "book vs. film" or "film vs. real event" (well-known but not quite accurate and 100% effective"based on a true story"). It also includes analysis of the changes made into a final product and its effect on it and circumstances under which those were made;
  4. Recounting of the films production - basically a reversal of traditional film analysis. In short it may be a non-fiction story about the strange ways of doing film the right way;
  5. Analysis of historical and aesthetic context - it may cover more than one film. Usually such type of essay requires a deep dive into a history books in search of hard proofs of certain claims;
There's also another kind of film essay - apophenia rampage. This one isn't really an academic genre, rather a conspicuously common thing in Internet. People like to overthink things and sometimes they make otherwise implausible theories about certain works of art. Case in point - Stanley Kubrick' The Shining. Some "researchers" think that this film tells a story of how Kubrick faked the moon landing and accused America of Native Americans Genocide and also Illuminati Lizard People of the Avocado Jungle of Death Eating Cloud Baboon Bat.

Things to remember

While writing an essay about movie you should keep in mind that there are several elements that you should include if you want to construct a coherent analysis.
  1. Get the names, roles and dates right. Sometimes the year is wrong and producer had morhed into a composer. It's always better to double check all the names, roles, titles and dates in databases. In this case IMDB may come in handy.
  2. Get the quotes and references straight. Film writing is a narrow corner so if you quote something - don't forget to give credit. It is not just being polite - it shows the scope of your research and the way you formed your own point of view on the subject matter.
  3. Don't repeat other people's concepts. While it's always fun to claim that Aliens is about Vietnam War and overcoming of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - it is already talked to death from every perspective. If you want to write credible movie analysis - you need to find something new to talk about. Surf through analysis on a given subject and find what is missing. That is what you need.
  4. Keep the structure easy to follow. Otherwise reader will be bored by the mess you've made and will move on to something else. That is not what you want. Keep the structure simple. In the beginning - explain what are you going to do. Then explore the topic step by step, in digestible bites. Follow every point from A to Z, then move on the next. This will keep the pace. In the end - summarize everything you've came around.

In conclusion

Writing about movies is fun. Even the text is swamped by scientific expressionism - it is always fascinating to see how many things you can dig up in one relatively short piece of art. It is an endless source of ideas good and bad. It is a testament of human dare.
Thank you for reading. Hope you're enjoyed. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe.

SLIM GAILLARD’S LANGUAGE VOUT

Today Jazz is something the posh folk listens to just to show that they are some sort of cool. But that is not what jazz is about. Jazz is a pure expression of will in the form of sound. Jazz musician plays a different kind of music - the one not bound by the chains of notation, rhythm or harmony. It's a pure force of spirit. Something you likely won't get from your Chris Botty record.
Jazz was biggest, hottest thing in the 1950s. Rising from the clubs and through the streets - numerous performers showed their skills in all possible manners. Solo, duo, trio, quartet, quintet - and every time they were playing like it was their last stand. They were playing the life out. It was the time when jazzmen were the coolest homo sapiens walking on earth. They were channeling the divine and pouring inspiring vibrations through the space into the place occasionally known as mind.
Blah Blah Blah, anyway.
One of the most significant performers of that time was Slim Gaillard. He was the most electrifying man in the mix during 1940s-50s. In musical terms Slim was firmly in the bebop jazz with frenzied fast tempos, instrumental gutta-percha combined with relentless improvisations. His supernatural charisma was irresistible and his energetic performances are stuff of legends.
To get a sense how his performances looked like - here's a bit from Jack Kerouac seminal On the Road:
 "... one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He'll sing 'Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti' and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he'll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can't hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ..." He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.
Dean stands in the back, saying, 'God! Yes!'-and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. 'Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.' Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two C's, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing 'C-Jam Blues' and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours. Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over everybody's head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is slipped into his hand. 'Bourbon-orooni-thank-you-ovauti ...' Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim said, 'There you go-orooni.' Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. 'Right-orooni,' says Slim; he'll join anybody but won't guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, 'Orooni,' Dean said 'Yes!' I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni."

***

One of his defining features was rather unique manner of singing lyrics. Slim Gaillard loved to mix all the things he could get his grasp on into something completely different. His songs often utilized nonsensical novelty children songs, Jive slang and combined variety of slangs and sometimes even languages thus reflecting multi-cultural all-inclusive nature of jazz. As time went by he developed his own language of sorts. He called it Vout. The title originates from a jazz slang word "voot" which means "money".
Basically Vout was a natural continuation, sort of solidifying of his scat style in a form of lingual improvisation based around certain combination of sounds. The purpose of Vout was to transcribe lyrics into a free-form melody, that could be reinterpreted and expanded on the fly by the inclusion or exclusion of various details. But it wasn't only that - it was also clear manifestation of Slim's artistic persona. His manic, electric delivery was integral part of Vout.
Aesthetically, it is not that far away from was were doing the Futurists and later Dadaists in the 1910s-20s. They wanted to make language exciting and new. They did it by stripping it naked - setting language free from long-standing conventions and petrified imagery and making it fun to play again in the process. They deconstructed language into something of their own. Something that broke new grounds.
In practical terms, Vout was designed to be fully explore performers capability of vocalizing. Thus it was as direct and simple as possible. For means of rhythm, some words ended with o-roony, o-reen-nee, or vout - as in blink-o-roony (sleepy), burn-o-vooty (kitchen), mug-o-vooty (face). Other, more complex words can be combined into a collage of random words in a beautiful melody, such as capa (swallow) and hurma (year).
In 1946 he published its dictionary - aptly titled Slim Gaillard's Vout-o-Reenee Dictionary. Most of the words included in the dictionary has somewhat obscure origins. Most of them are borrowed from the Jive slang, such as "benny" which means "coat". Some words are from Yiddish, Arabic. The mix is so dense - it is nearly impossible to understand what Slim is singing about without a dictionary. Basically, it is a one-man argot.
But you can almost always get a distant sense what he's talking about through the sound of words and the context they're used in.
Take a look at the rare scan of Slim Gaillard's Vout-o-Reenee Dictionary:






ESSAY ABOUT POETRY: TOPICS, OUTLINE, TIPSEDIT

 If you think about it for a moment - it is incredibly easy to write an essay about poetry. After all - there is no conclusive, definite definition of what poetry is. It is everything and nothing in particular. It is, as Tzvetan Todorov wrote "a matter of time, place and text". It can take any form or shape and still be powerful document of human experience. It shows the capabilities of human mind free of chains of establishment and chores of everyday life. Mind that is twisting and shouting restless and wild. Mind that moves in leaps and bounds towards infinity and beyond.
But on the other hand - it takes an effort to "get" poetry. You can't just digest it as a candy bar. There are a lot of barriers for poetry to pass through in order to be appreciated fully, not even to mention writing an essay on poetry. Too much to think about. Thus it can be easily misunderstood. Maybe even too easily. That misfortune usually leads to severe misinterpreting and then to whole chain of events, in a domino-like manner, causes thorough and utter discarding of a piece as heinous rubbish sprinkled with extreme disgust. Sometimes it is funny, other times it is sad. But it is fair to say that poetry usually suffers badly from being misunderstood and misinterpreted. It always deserves better than to be discarded as something abundantly pretentious and curiously useless in relation to primary consuming needs of a human being of XXI century. But why it happens that way?
To answer that question - we need to go ab ovo.

What is poetry?

That question is a popular favorite amongst posh, pretentious schmucks who like to put some schmaltz over the substantial matters because you know - matter is something that matters. Well, you know, secretes pus. Everybody loves to think and talk about "what is poetry?". Hell, better part of American poetry is about other poetry and makes even less sense if you read it and about it. You just can't get away from it and its formaldehyde odor. It became a thing of its own. A substitute of another thing. Looks pretty tall, but it is the heels that are high.  
Every time you get around it - the only thing you really get is a simulacrum instead of a real thing. Vague expressions of the vogue without grace or even proper lightning - down in a hole, rattling like a rooster over sleeping kangaroo. And this extreme waste of time led to one very interesting unintended consequence.
Georgian philosopher Merab Mamardashvili once wrote that there is no need in looking for philosophy in philosophic texts. Because there is no philosophy in the philosophic texts. It is always eluding; it is always elsewhere. Anywhere, basically, but not in the things that call itself so. And since there is nothing on the banner - nevermind the bollocks.

How to write an essay on poetry?

Poetry is a tough subject to write about. Mainly because you can spin it anyway you want. The only real thing you need is a proper argument base. With it you can dance the poems original meaning away so far you'll start to wonder what lies beneath the layer formerly occupied by meaning. This doesn't mean you have to go to such extremes, but as an exercise - overanalyzing is quite fun.
In the foundation of every essay about poetry lies combination of literary theory, historical and aesthetic backgrounds . It must go one by one. First, you need to show origins of the piece - in what environment it evolved. Then dissect the techniques applied in it and interpret imagery within the text. After that you can muse about the ways it correlates with current cultural status or lack of thereof of any given text.
With this things you can the reader clear understanding of your interpretation of the piece.
While writing an essay about poetry - you need to remember that talking about poetry is inessential to the poetry itself. It brings nothing on the table and it is only a blunt subterfuge to avoid taking poetry as it is - on its own terms. Why? Because poetry can be overwhelming. Especially if you let it be so. It is tragicomic to put it politely. As Adam West once said "sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb". It seems that the majority thought that the best way was to embrace the bomb. Even if the bomb was in reality a watermelon and now, after a while it just stinks.
To say it in other words - there is no such thing as poetry in strict, concrete terms. It is always something else. "Something else" is probably the most adequate description of poetry. But there are numerous other descriptions. One of my favorite belongs to Ezra Pound and it goes like this "Poetry is the news that stays the news". Too playful.
But what if you need to write an essay on poetry analysis. Here's what Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning". Much better.
It is easy to explain the poem, to tell the story behind its creation, to dive deep into the craft of the text. But it always missing something. Something dies when a poem is dissected - maybe it is the spirit leaves the body of the text. Keep that in mind.
That leads us to the question from the beginning...

Why poetry is so easily misunderstood?

Part of the reason poetry is so much maligned and ridiculed lies in the perpetrators themselves. The majority of people does not care about poetry or other forms of literature. They only care for things that can make them feel good either in long term or short term perspective.
Since poetry makes nothing happen in a rather fascinating way - it is rather irritating to those who only think and cares about "serious things". To counter them - you just need to let them bob their uncles and twist the lemons a bit. Plain and simple.

To round things up, I would like to quote Marianne Moore. In her poem aptly titled "Poetry" she wrote: "I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in it after all, a place for the genuine."
What is hidden behind poetry?
Funnily enough - with the things that you can find in the text it boils down to simple operating procedure. Do you remember that Nike ad? "Just do it!" That is the simplest description for the process of writing poetry. Even though it is not quite accurate. In reality it is far more prosaic (pardon me for that figure). While writing an essay about poetry - you need to remember about that. It was done because of it. That's a crucial factor.  Let me break it down step by step:
  1. - writer gets the inciting image;
  2. - it becomes irritating
  3. - he builds the premise around it;
  4. - tries to find the most effective way of expressing the ideas;
  5. - surrounds with an elaborate verbal construction;
  6. - then throws it away;
What happens then is up to debate, usually it is one of these:
  1. - starts all over again;
  2. - procrastinates, possibly by writing another poem;
  3. - writes the poem down on a whim as if its a fridge note;
  4. - add some verbal icing and grammar chick;
  5. - leaves it be for a while;
  6. - then, if it doesn't annoy him - consider submitting somewhere.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART WAS A JOKERMAN

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart needs no introduction. He's one of the most famous and influential composers of his age. He is right there, along with the Holy Trinity of Killer B's: Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, in the middle of the Western Canon - his traces can be detected almost anywhere. His works are the epitome of what we call music. And because of that there is a certain lack of appreciation of his music. We don't really understand the importance of Mozart. We take him for granted.
In his time the composition techniques he used were boundary pushing. His music was taking chances and trying something completely different. He was dead set on going where no one had gone before. He wanted to "make it new". And ultimately he managed to change the way the concept of music is perceived. 
While his mesmerizing character, fascinating personality traits, turbulent life and mysterious death became subjects of numerous works (unfortunately including astoundingly inaccurate joke of a biopic "Amadeus") - one element of his body of work is usually woefully overlooked. I'm talking about his fondness for dirty jokes.

***

It is not a big surprise that Mozart was a fan of a good joke. Who isn't? Wolfgang enjoyed to tickle senses of an audience by touching upon sensitive subjects with an indelible and affectionate punches. His music has a lot of funny moments. However, sometimes his manner of joking had a tendency to go overboard and turn into downright offensive. This is well portrayed in otherwise inadequate "Amadeus".

He often wrote nonsensical letters to his friends and relatives and was consistently interested in pissing people off with crude and crass remarks. There is nothing wrong with toilet humor. After all - it's a contender for the universal language. It's just that a source of a poop joke is someone whose work is considered to be one of the highest points of music culture that rubs people the wrong way.

Here is K.231, also known as "Leck mic him Arsch", which loosely translates as "Kiss my ass". It's a simple party piece for six voices, a riff on a traditional Christmas carol with an elaborate lyrical twist. Since it consists of repetitive use of the phrase "Kiss my ass, quick-quick" - it is fair to say that the piece wasn't designed to be a statement of any significance. It is rather a fun detail to be fit in the picture on occasion somewhere on the skids. And as such it looks damn fine.

Some sort of continuation of the piece is the song "Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schon sauber" (K. 233) which loosely translates as "Lick my ass nice and clean". It has more elaborate lyrics and it seems that this time around it was made on the fly for the sake of fitting obscene with the classical choral form. There is this weird weightlessness to the piece that arrests and at the same time pushes listener away. This weird cognitive dissonance is obviously a true intention of the piece.


Another Mozart dirty song is "Bei der Hitz im Sommer ess ich" (K.234) that loosely translates as "In the heat of the summer I eat" and it's a romantic fart joke. It is different from the previous two because it actually has some kind of a narrative. It portrays a character. Protagonist of the song consumes "roots and spices and butter and radish" because they "expel a lovely wind" and "cool him". He also drinks a lot of various drinks because it is summer and it is hot and it fun to do. These images show unbearable idleness of a man who experiences longing and dreaming over some undisclosed and obviously improbable matter.

"Gehn wir im Prater, gehn wir in d' Hetz" (K.558) is not as ambitious. It is simply about wanting to go somewhere no matter what. Even if there are some callously nonsensical obstacles. Perhaps, it's all about the journey not the destination...
Today pieces K.233 and K.234 are considered to be misattributed to Mozart. It is most possibly a product of Wolfgang's friend Wenzel Trnka. The reason those pieces were attributed to Mozart was because Trnka was an amateur composer in his own right and he might have given the manuscripts to Wolfgang expecting for an advice or simply sharing his works with a friend. In the original publications lyrics were changed because of content. But later the originals were restored for all to hear. Nevertheless, for a long time these pieces were used as an example of Mozart's perverseness and obvious clue to claim that he suffered from Tourette's syndrome. But down with nonsense.
Anyway, these songs are nice fits to the aesthetic routines of much later Dada. They wouldn't sound out of place in the Cabaret Voltaire. And they certainly entertain.

***

 Wolfgang appreciated every chance to induce cringe and put a fair share of blush onto the cheeks. Sometimes he did it as a throwaway, other time he did it with extreme prejudice. The following piece shows that the mighty Wolfgang needed no dirty words to insult his contemporaries. He just needed to do what he does best - to compose music.

"A Musical Joke" (K. 522) is an odd piece within Mozart's body of work. It is an intentionally bad piece of music. In this piece Wolfgang viciously mocks lavishly ambitious and utterly incompetent composers by means of composition only. He makes the arrangement purposefully clumsy and full of pointless posturing. It turns more and more awkward as it goes. The piece takes bits and pieces of melodies and stitches them together to go ultimately nowhere as if the composer wasn't really sure in which direction he wanted to move. Lack of logic in the composition and its extreme technical ineptness inflates the piece to the point it is unbearably flattening. And in the end the whole piece literally falls apart through a clever use of polyharmony. Now that is what I call "trolling".
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Now you can see that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wasn't just that dude who wrote all that boring music that seniors hammer into your head. He was also a damn fine jokerman!

UTTER BEAUTY OF TWITTER BOTSEDIT

Of all the things brought to you by Internet - Twitter is one of the most fascinating. As a form of communication - it is nearly impeccable. Lightning-fast, comfortably compressed, incredibly effective. It is the perfect medium for the conversation in the age of short attention span. It is also a good place for experiments. Twitter bots are amongst them.
In short - twitter bot is a software application that is attached to a Twitter account in order to perform certain actions. Such as liking, following, tweeting, retweeting, etcetera. Aside from usual role in web automated promotion, Twitterbots turned out to be rather interesting tool for literary experimentation with random text generation, text selection and text collaging.
Here's the rundown of the most fascinating Twitterbots.
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@everyword

We can't start the list without mentioning the bot who tweeted every word in English language. It took him 109,000 tweets every half an hour for about seven years to get to the end. Created by Adam Parrish in 2007 (when Twitter was in its infancy) it was an attempt of critique of a new platform. "People were posting meaningless things, totally out of context. I wanted to satirize the brevity of Twitter messages". Based on a simple script that makes one post every thirty minutes taking its text from an alphabetized lost - @everyword turned out into conceptual art exercise. An attempt to show somewhat canonical list of English words.
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@streetsnsheets

This bot is a real deal for those who are looking for unexpected imagery. @streetsnsheets takes the phase "I'm a (blank space) on the streets and a (blank space) in the sheets" and randomizes the words to fill in the sentence. The results may wary. Usually it turns out to be like this "Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni in the streets, Crossbow Infantry in the sheets" or like this "Pieces of the Puzzle in the streets, Bioplasm in the sheets". It makes zero sense on its own but it is mildly entertaining depending on the context it can give you accidental shot in the arm. It happened with me on the tweet "Goblin Arsonist in the streets, Field Creeper in the sheets".
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@egressmethods


In 1975 Paul Simon wrote a song "50 ways to leave your Lover". It is rather annoying if you really think about it. But that's OK. In spite of a title it only touched upon about 7 ways. It was quite irritating for some and but offered food for thought. That's why Adam Parrish created another bot to "fulfill the promise", fill the quota and expand upon it in an elaborate way "from now into eternity ". Every couple of hours' bot generates another new way to leave a lover. It's a nice showcase of how we perceive random generated text.
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@YouAreCarrying


This Twitter bot gives you a chance for an adventure. Created by Andrew Vestal it is a starting point for an oldschool quest. You just need to send a message to an account with words "inventory" or "I" and get a list of items for your adventure. This list of things will rather odd. Then you can imagine what is going on. Or don't. Latter is more curious. Anyway the lists of items are generated at random and sometimes they tell the stories of their own. Usually quite absurd. Classic @YouAreCarrying posts look like this: "a soy patty, a toy duck, a wallet, an apple, a blanket, a rusty cross." Or "a headlamp, a log tape, a pair of magnetic boots, a small drill bit, a J-series hyperdiode, a key." Or "an ionic diffusion rasp, a Nutrimat/Computer Interface, a tool box." Or "a  card, a rusty iron key, a Flathead stamp, a white book, a cake frosted with orange letters, a bank brochure.". it is like poetry - endless images, narrative threads and verbal equilibrism...
Just don't think too hard about it.
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@BlackBoughBot



This Bot creates variations on Ezra Pounds seminal poem "In the Station of the Metro". The poem known for its dense imagery and economic narrative is a perfect battleground for linguistic experimentation of a mindless drone. Since there are no verbs - it makes even more outlandish variations of the poem quite entertaining. Albeit none of them will ever come out of the shadow of its great ancestor. However, it is weirdly satisfying to think that there is entire army of "In the Station of the Metro" variations standing in its shadow waiting for the right moment to start the assault...
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@DependsUponBot+ @JustToSayBot

 
William Carlos Williams is one of the most memetic poets of this day and age. He's legacy got not one but two Twitter bots that frequently post variations of his poems. One bot posts versions of his famous "Red Wheelbarrow", while the other posts variations on "This is Just to Say". Basically both bots riff on the poems ad absurdum. Because they have no rhyme or reason - occasionally result is utterly fascinating.
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Anagramatron


Anagramatron is brainchild of Colin Rothfels. It is a bot that repost posts that contain anagrams - words and phrases that are made by rearranging the letters of a given words or phrases in order to produce new text while using all the original letters exactly once. Anagramaton bot looks for anagrams all over the twitter. And when he finds something that can be qualified as an anagram - he reposts it. This makes an assorted accidental collection of curiosities.
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BONUS: @big_ben_clock


This one is for the hardcores. It is all just Bong and bong and bong and bong. A bog of Bongs basically. Because it is a clock. It is beautiful the way it is and you should really appreciate this little Twitterbot for its audacity. Also - you might experience a fit of hostile allergy towards the letters "B" and "O" and "N" and "G" and their respective combined soundforms

***

That's it for now. Hope you're enjoyed. There many more curious Twitter bots out there. But these were the most interesting IMHO.

MAGNIFICENT SEVEN FAMOUS ESSAY WRITERSEDIT

Is there anything more fascinating than people who write about stuff? Of course not. Stuff is the nexus point of all things. It can be described and it can be interpreted. It is depicted in a variety of ways. While fiction writing requires some sort of precision and usually needs a lot of time to be fully realized - essays are a kind of compromise between the big thing and a little nil. Nasty middle-ground of sorts where anything can happen and everything usually goes wrong. Some writers can do essays better than the others. Here's a list of some of the most fascinating famous essay writers.


Fran Lebowitz

Fran Lebowitz famous essayist

You may know Fran Lebowitz because of her uber-cool looks - that haircut, smug face, jeans + cowboy boots + jacket + white shirt combination, never-ending smoking, evocative verbose talking style... She also wrote a lot of essays back when she wasn't stuck in the middle of her rather infamous Writers Block.

The majority of her writings are collected in 1978's Metropolitan Life and 1981's Social Studies (and also 1994's compilation Fran Lebowitz Reader which is a best-of with a couple of bonus texts). Her writing style is fast-paced, highly expressively, entire deadpan. Her essays are rollercoaster rides - the route is set and you just need to go through to get a thrill. It is as if she was not writing a text but composing a piece of music where the only instrument is reader's reactions.

  1. https://www.amazon.com/Metropolitan-Life-Fran-Lebowitz/dp/0525155627
  2. https://www.amazon.com/Fran-Lebowitz-Reader/dp/0679761802
  3. https://www.amazon.com/Social-Studies-Fran-Lebowitz/dp/0394512456

Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling famous essayist

Bruce Sterling is a kind of a writer who can make exciting anything he writes about. He's got that positively toxic sense of wonder in his writing. Man who prefers interesting words and rather unexpected turns - he writes about new things that emerge in our lives.

His method lies in the completely unmitigated exploration rampage of the subject. You can be sure you know everything about the subject. The way he arranges information is particularly exciting. In his 1992 Hacker Crackdown he convinces you by style only that the infamous so-called 1987-1990 Hacker Civil War is a Shakespearian drama even though the entire thing more resembled afterschool playground racket. Sterling builds a maze with information - lets the reader walk around it and make your own conclusions.

  1. http://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen famous essayist

You might've heard of this man. He was on the cover of "Time" magazine and he was called "great American novelist" and everybody said "meh". He's also a nominee of Bad Sex Award. Despite all this - he actually knows a thing or two how to write contemplative essay to start an intense argument. His infamous 1996 essay "Why Bother?" aka "Perchance to Dream: In the Age of Images, a Reason to Write Novels" was a blast when it came out. In it Franzen tackles the subject of technological growth, ever-reaching threat of distractions in our lives and importance of reading despite all this. He also shares his thoughts on the state of the novel form in the end of XX century and thinks about the ways it can evolve in the future.

Franzen takes the subjects of writing and reading as a man who truly, madly, deeply loves it and tries to defend it from any impending harm by any means necessary. That makes the reader rather engage in otherwise optional opinion on a rather technical specifics of the novel form in that point of time.

  1. http://www.shirleybriceheath.net/pdfs/ENG_HarpersFranzenPerchanceToDream.pdf

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace famous essayist

Everybody says they like David Foster Wallace. But nobody seems to be really reading him beyond the buzz-worthy titles. Wallace seems to be a natural fit for essay writing. He likes to explore, he enjoys the process of getting to know more, to understand something, to change the perspective and go backwards. And reader can do it with him.

His 1996 essay "David Lynch keeps his head" recounts time Wallace had spent as a reporter on set of Lynch's "Lost Highway". It is inspiring character study - one of the most satisfying accounts on any artists. Wallace provides multiple perspectives on the subject. He tells us what he thinks of Lynch. He drops few memorable episodes from the shoot and then goes deep into the phenomenon of David Lynch. Wallace tries to dissect his style and explain to himself what makes Lynch's worldview so fascinating.

  1. http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson famous essayist

Say what you about mighty Raoul Duke - crass, loudmouth, gross, obscene - but the man knew how to combine the words in a way that will evoke enchanting narrative on any subject. As the story goes, while working as a copyboy he retyped Hemingway's and Faulkner's novels in order to feel how the good text written. His Gonzo writing style is something to behold. First-person, wishy-washy free-flowing narrative - cut to the action - swipe to the random thought that turns everything inside out - snap we're back into the action.

His classic 1970 report Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved is scathing Boschian diorama of excess and consumerism. Thompson gets right in the middle of the whirlpool of pus, dives down to the bottom, drives a nail deep and sputters a fountain of hidden excremental treasure.

  1. http://brianb.freeshell.org/a/kddd.pdf

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe famous essayist

At this point Tom Wolfe seems to be the guy who wrote about Merry Prankster Bus Ride and then turned into self-serious bro who writes about the cool. But at his prime he was really good. His intense in-your-face approach is making you feel you're in the middle of thing. His love for very detailed expressive descriptions makes reading more akin to wine tasting than digesting information.

His 1963 essay "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" with all its glorious onomatopoeia (Varoom! Varoom! Thphhhhhh! Rahghhh! Brummmmmmmmmmmmmmm) is the best example of his style. High on style, low on dull recounts - it is unstoppable juggernaut of stories and images that in the same time make a convincing argument against the cult of consumerism. 

  1. https://www.amazon.com/Kandy-Kolored-Tangerine-Flake-Streamline-Baby/dp/0312429126/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Gay Talese

Gay Talese famous essayist

If you don't really feel like you want to read that much - than read just one essay by Gay Talese. "Frank Sinatra has a cold" is one of the best reports ever written. Staggering character study of one of the greatest entertainers of the XX century - it is mesmerizing kaleidoscope of scenes from a life of a man who is on the top of the world and yet still insecure and frail in many aspects. While denied an actual interview, Talese decided to watch the man and his entourage. Unlike Thompson, Talese never makes himself a center of the narrative. Instead he prefers the omnipresence of an Author. He rips through the layers of reality, uncovers hidden undercurrents and shuns the gloss of Ol' Blue Eyes.

As Talese once wrote "...by getting rejected constantly and by seeing his flunkies protecting his flanks-we will be getting close to the truth about the man."

  1. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/

In any way - if you want to know what our essay writers can do - you should definitely try out our services. Contact our support team for further information.

SEVEN WAYS OF SHAPING YOUR WRITING PROCESS

Gearing for another writing project may be one of the most grueling experiences. You've already finished one thing, spent some time considering the options and now time has come to make the next step and it seems like you are not really able to do it. At least the way you want it. Everything seems wrong or suspicious or downright deceptive. This often comes out of lack of self-managing. Writing is the process. And as any other process it needs to be started and properly organized.  Unlike industrial processes where bad start may be the recipe for the disaster - starting poorly in writing just means your start this time was particularly lacking and you need to fix it. The thing is in the way you do the thing.
Here's a little set of advices that may help you to organize your process in a more effective and satisfying way.

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Set Boundaries


The first and most important thing in organizing the writing process is setting the boundaries. Good set of do's and don'ts will limit your scope and probably will make it at least a little tangible and possibly even plausible. Don't think about boundaries in a negative way - it is more of shaping what you can and can't do, what you want and don't want to do. It is the starting point. Because of that you will be able to see mirage of the goal you really want to achieve. Just remember to keep your set of boundaries in mind every time you feel a bit lost.

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Find immersive but not overwhelming subject


There is no choice of the subject usually. It all happens by accident. You get hooked and then you dive deep into the rabbit hole until you exhaust it and leave it as a set of nasty fancy caves for spectators to awe and look in. Sometimes the whole process of getting hooked is dragged out to a considerable period of time but it is not like you force yourself to be interested in something. Unless you're interested in finding something really exciting. Something you can immerse yourself in no matter of personal taste of beliefs. But not so much - it doesn't have to be "end all, be all", "the most important thing in the world" kind of subject.
There is also a trick - consider your subject to be a little trifle, an elaborate jest. That easy-going attitude will help you to prevent overwhelming from happening.

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Know your limitations and go beyond


Before starting a session - take a moment to think about yourself as a writer. What are your stronger feats? What is lacking? What things you can't do well enough? What are your failings? What bugs you? Make a list of all these things. And then, one-by-one, tackle it by abusing it to the point of it losing any trace of sense. Knowing yourself is a good thing. It helps sometimes. But it also something that makes you to avoid certain things - because you know you're not fit for it. But what if you try just because? It is not like a Chornobyl disaster will happen after you fail. Why not?

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Appreciate things around you


Face it - you don't live in the bubble. There are so many things going on around you, so many distraction, sometimes sweet, sometimes irritating - you can't get away from it. One way or another you always bump into a cactus. And then everything stalls and you take time to regroup. And then it happens again. And again. And again and again. Marc Almond starts to sing in your head "Again and again and again" and you notice that that cactus you've bumped in recently got an awesome riff - one way or another.
Consider everything around you to be a potential source of idea. Get the thick of it.

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Forget about "shoulds"


One of the most annoying things that occurs while taking on a big project is the list of things you "should" do. Unlike casual "to-do" lists which help you to operate on a micro level, "should-list" is an overwhelming burden that keeps you down more and more you think about it. Unless it is a commissioned job - all the "shoulds" are optional. It's up to you to decide in which direction to move at any point in time. You should trust your instincts, your gut - not the big vague umbrella goal "it has to be the greatest something-something" doing vogue in your head.

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Avoid Feature Creep


Feature Creep is the process adding more and more new things to the project without working on what you already have. The result is half-baked product. You may read something and like it and think "I like it so much I want to do something like that". If you happen to think about it - stop right there and think about Duke Nukem Forever. It was a nice and easy idea in the beginning - hero's second outing against alien threat, he got soft after the first time and relaxed, he gets to the low point and works his way up. And then feature creep happened with its "what if we add awesome snow level", "what if we add miniature racing sequence", "what if we add big bridge shootout", "what if we add football with giant eyeballs against flying buttocks in flatulence expelling deadly brown goo" ... you get the point. It ended badly. Don't even try.

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Read in the end of session


There is no better finish for the writing session than reading through all the things you've written over its course. It is a nice opportunity to reconsider your progress - see what works and what is not and what things you definitely need to fix.
You can also read out loud the finished fragments. It will defamiliarize the text for you and you will be able to look at it at different perspective. Which can open up new opportunities and show new ways of developing the thing. Which is always a good thing.

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Taman Shud means "finished" in Persian. Drop it somewhere.

HOW TO WRITE? ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN

What are the most important elements of writing process? Let's find out? 
There is nothing easier than writing. You just open up text processor and start to type the thing down and after a certain period of time it is done and it is relatively perfect and definitely serviceable. That is how you answer the question "How to write?". But that kind of wishful thinking is utterly and thoroughly wrong.
Writing is not only writing. It is developing a time schedule, doing the research, sketching, trying different ways, etc. Without taking such steps the only thing you will achieve will be a hot mess and you will slip into panic mode because the deadline is drawing closer and closer. That's why you need to consider the ways you can organize your work.
Basically by organizing writing process you get a guarantee for a result. Whether or not it will be any good - that's another question. The fact is - you will get something no matter what. And you can work it out in a variety of ways...
Here's the thing - writing is a tricky subject to write about. It is a kind of the same all time but each time it is different. There are no definitive recipes of how to organize yourself in the best ways. Consider these advices as possibilities worth trying.  

Choose the topic

Choice of the topic is single most important thing in writing. If you get the wrong perspective or your topic is a little bit lame - you will be forced to go back to the beginning in order to make it work. Basically it all boils down to choosing something that wasn't really exposed yet. If you're writing an essay about literature - that is almost always the case. If the topic is well-explored, you should consider combining several into a plausible thought-provoker. If there is nothing substantial on your topic - then you can do whatever you want. And that is not the good thing since it makes your essay less credible. Remember about that.

Collect the intel

Once the topic is set - you need to start the research. These phase is usually divided into several level. First is intense and unmitigated rampage of collecting every little bit of information on the subject. If it has the keywords of interest - grab it. Next level is going through all the gathered information, leaving out insignificant and keeping everything of interest. Third level is composing a premake of the text by using bits and pieces of texts from the gathered information. This will make a working prototype of an essay which will serve as a foundation for your own text.
Also - while going through research materials, note all the emerging ideas. Maybe some of it will be useful while working on the text later.

Develop your own Point of View

That's the most important part. Your point of views the gist of the text. It is what matters the most. How to develop it - it's all in the text. You get the keywords - everything dances around them. There are concepts hidden behind the words. These concepts correlate between each other. The explanations of the concepts reference other writings - you get the perspective. Bit by bit it comes together. At first it looks blurry - but then it clears out. It's all about making the dots and then connecting the dots into a fairly curvy line.

Make the structure

It is easier to work if you know what exactly are you doing. Structure is the skeleton of the text, its blueprint. Without it - everything falls apart. You need to think which information is better to be presented in which parts of the text to make plausible and coherent argument.
Most common and proven structure consists of three parts: introduction, main part and conclusion. In the introduction you tell the reader what you are about to do and why. In the main part you explore the subject, one point at the time with minimal bleedthrough. In the conclusion you round things up and summarize everything said before.
Here's what should be included:
  1. Basic definition of the used terms;
  2. Thorough description of your intentions in the essay;
  3. Clean, easy-to-follow structure with step-by-step exploration of the subject;
  4. Aesthetic, Scientific, Historic backgrounds of the subject;
  5. Different kinds of perspectives from other researchers;
  6. Conclusions can be traced throughout the text.

Write it down

While it may seem funny - it takes a lot to start writing. But then - why bother if you're not ready? After your structure is done and you have gathered enough research materials - you can start writing The Text. The only rule that is worth following in writing is to write one thing at the time without trying to take everything at once. After you've finished the text - let it cool down a bit and revisit it. A little pause gives renewed perspectives which makes you see all the problematic parts of the texts. With all the problems marked - you can start revisions. Usually it takes two or three rounds of revisions to get polished text.

That's it. While there can be further elaborations on what to do and how to do - these are the essentials. Be sure to subscribe to our blog and share the word with your friends!

SHORT POEMS – WHAT THEY CAN TEACH US ABOUT POETRY?

The question "what is poetry?" is one of the most manipulative topics for an essay you can find. It is basically an invitation to retreat and lean back to plodding going-nowhere phrases. Of course - you can go deep into the theory - but that will be Greek for anyone uninvolved. Even those who genuinely like poetry and know thing or two about it usually give up on those texts. It is almost dancing about architecture. There is always something sorely missed. It's all too much. But at the very least there is largely agreed upon description of poetry "form of text that employs rhythmic and aesthetic qualities of the language to evoke certain kind of intellectual and emotional reaction".
Poetry is a tricky subject to talk about - basically it is everything and nothing in particular. It is not quite tangent and rather transparent and there is always too much to say that will miss the mark completely and will only bring somewhat middling albeit inspiring confusion to the table. It also can be found in the Morrissey songs, but only if you make it so. This is the problem with poetry. It can be made out of everything. Anyway...
If you really want to understand what makes poetry work - you need to turn away from Rhyme of Ancient Mariner or Wasteland and look on the shortest poems. It is where all you can see how the things work.

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Let's start from the classics.
Everyone knows about allegedly Hemingway's six-word story "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." There is a lot of story left to the reader's imaginations. Whole narrative can be built around it but it is the lack of thereof in the text that makes it tick. If poetry is about leaving only most important things intact, then six-word story is perfect example.
But it doesn't limit itself to such definitions. Let's take for example Ezra Pound's "In the station of the Metro". It is an epitome of modernist poetry - it is unlike anything before it. It is not a haiku; it is not a exactly regular free verse. It is something completely different and yet extremely compelling:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
We can see steady gradation of the images in the poem - they come one by one and in the end combine into one indelible something. It evokes the strange feeling it describes. The same technique was used by Langston Hughes in his poem titled "Suicide's Note". It is a contemplation build upon the reversal of the narrative. We have a story told through apology for one's actions:
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

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Scarcity of words can also represent some kind of a warped narrative. Kenneth Patchen's "The Murder of Two Men by a Young Kid Wearing Lemon-colored Gloves" is a fine example of a poem that tells the story by moving in one hundred and eighty degrees and then another three hundred and sixty degrees and then one more time one hundred and eighty. The result is mesmerizing in it economy of expressions:
Wait. 
                                                 Wait. 
                                        Wait. 
                        Wait. Wait. 
                Wait. 
                                                          Wait.   
                                  W a i t. 
                        Wait. 
                                              Wait. 
                                                               Wait.   
                                    Wait. 
                                                          Wait. 
                   Wait. 
                                    NOW.
The way words are situated on the page tell the entire story. It goes back and forth until the moment comes. After which the title happens.
Obviously minimization of language can evoke comedic effect. Ogden Nash was the master of expressing his thoughts on a certain subject in a short and snappy and caustic combination of words. Such are usually just what they are - a neat couple of words that can make you think "yeah, sure". Here's a poem titled "Reflection on a Wicked World":
Purity
Is obscurity.
Or this, titled "The Baby":
A Bit of talcum
is always walcum
Or maybe this, titled "Further Reflections on Parsley":
Parsley
Is gharsley.
In these poem Nash is mocking both the given topic and conventions of aphorisms and poetry as something "really very special. It is a "snarky smirk in the thick of it full of itself" (don't google it, I've made it up). The same can be said about "Ode to a Goldfish" by Giles Brandeth.
O
Wet
Pet!
It is "nothing to talk about" kind of poem. Everything is laid down and it is beyond discussion. The different kind of "thought-eliminating" poetry is "Artichoke" by Joseph Hutchison:
O heart weighed down by so many wings
It is clearly a beginning of a regular poem but it is cutoff after one line suggesting that the subject is either "beyond what words can comprehend" or "not worthy wasting words". But this is nothing in comparison with this one. "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes" also known as "Fleas" by Strickland Gillilan is often considered to be the shortest poem in English. It simply states the fact and nothing more. It causes the full stop in mind. See for yourself:
Adam
Had 'em.
But it doesn't have to be such cruel. It can be a simple play with the way words are written. It is the main point of the poem by George Swede:
M SS NG
Thiiief!
And also this neat little poem by Adam Gamble:
                                                   balloon!

          



Hold on tight to your

And if you thought things can't go less - here's the ultimate. Lo and behold! Aram Saroyan's LIGHGHT.
LIGHGHT
That's it. It's over. Why are you still here? Go home, it's over. You wait for some more? No, there's none. It's over.

***

P.S.: OK! Here's one more. Crag Hill's epic poem on lack of confidence:
cant'
P.P.S.: All right, all right, here's one more. But this is final: Aaron Belz "Nought"
t

MESSAGE FROM CHARLES BUKOWSKIEDIT

You all know and probably love Charles Bukowski. He's the guy who was so grounded, so much like you and me albeit with life ten times tougher - you naturally relate to him. His contemplations, observations and attitude make his writing timeless. One of his poems especially strikes me as it is rather handy professional advices. In it he rather bluntly lays out the state of things. He explains all the do's and don't's of writing. I feel I need to elaborate on it any further.

Allow me to present it here in full.

***

So You Want To Be A Writer

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was. 

***

What do you think about it? Share your thoughts.

HOW TO: TIME MANAGEMENT

Time - is waiting in the wings and speaks of senseless things...
Time is one of those things that you can't really explain. It just is. But it is constantly beyond your scope and grasp. Even though your watch shows something of a steady flow - you feel it goes faster, slower, jumps and hops and stops. After a while you get used to it and don't even understand how much time you actually waste while doing things. That's turns into a big problem when it comes to business. Time can play a joke on you, time can really hurt you, it can ruin everything. But there is an easy fix for it - time management.
In short - time management is complex of routines for organizing your working flow. You get a list of things you need to accomplish - calculate how much time approximately it might take and then compose a time table with a clean picture of activities for a certain period of time. Because of that you get much more results. Your effectiveness receives a boost, your efficiency in the area of activity grows exponentially.
But before I start to explain how to do time management - I need to explain the concept of time. There are two separate forms of time. There is one that occurs naturally, the one that you feel. It is relative. It can go faster and slower depending on your mindset and other factors. And then there is clearly divided and calculated clock time - which 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. Major goal of time management is to bring natural feeling of time and clock time as close as possible by making a steady rhythm of succession of activities. It is possible because natural time is rather relative. You can shape any way you want. When you have limited window of time to do certain thing you act quite differently from a situation when you need to do something and you have "all the time in the world".
Time management gives you a chance to make yourself a better worker. You can do more, you can be more diverse, you can discover new things. All because you have correctly organized your day. It helps to avoid much of the stress you get while working. It helps you to escape from the impending doom of drowning in the messy marsh of disorganized workflow.
Imagine this: without a plan your work is like an avalanche. Just falls all over the place in no particular order. But with a proper time management your work starts to look like a tactical bombing. First you get this thing, then this thing and then that thing.

How to time manage your working Day?

First of all - you need to separate your activities one from another. In essence, there are three types of human activity - thoughts, conversations and actions. Everything consists of them. Thoughts go to actions, actions cause conversations, which in turn sparkles some additional thoughts which can serve as a foundation of something completely different for another session.
After that you need to define your tasks and goals. There are two types of these: general and specific. You have one big master goal - the big one. It is divided into a sequence of steps. Which are divided into series of tasks. Which in turn are divided into a groups of smaller tasks that secure the successful realization of the general goal. It may sound tangled but it is really easy on practice.
Let's say you need to write an essay. That is the master goal. What do you need to do to write an essay? You need to define the topic, do some research on the subject, make a structure out of it, write a draft, edit it, maybe rewrite if needed, format it and get done with it. This is a sequence.
Now every step is divided into smaller tasks. For example, what do you need to do when you're forming a structure of an essay? You need to study the collected research materials, take out all the important information, develop your own perspective, morph it into the points and put it in some order with clear beginning, middle and end.
We can go on and break one task into specific actions. How do you do the research? You round up the keywords, get the all the possible sources, run through them like a hurricane, when something fits your topic you grab it and go on to the other source in search of the goods. All you do is basically scavenging and plundering. Then you take all the stuff that you have collected and you study it. Maybe something needs an expansion. Maybe something just looks good but doesn't add much to the table. In the end you get something that can be considered a bricks. Then you put them into the structure and what you have is a working prototype of your text. Nice and easy.
All those things take time. Sometimes too much. At first - there is no way to figure out how much time takes any of the activities. But after a while you start noticing that some things usually take more time than the others. It is recommended to use timer to keep track of time passing. It will immensely improve your pace in the future.

After you have figured out how much time your actions take - you can start composing the time tables. It is important to have clear distinctions between actions. You can't follow one session of research with another session of research. It will be too monotone. You will get tired and your attention won't be as sharp as you need. Your focus will be muddied by the previous sessions. It won't be as effective as it should. You need to follow it up by sketching bits and pieces of a text or digesting the information you have already collected. Or taking a little break to clear your mindset before the other bout.
Speaking of breaks. Don't put any activities back to back. It will only exhaust you which is not a big deal for a blitzkrieg writing sessions but in long term it will substantially affect your work. There must be pauses - not big ones where one can get lost, but the ones where you can loosen up and take a deep breath. School breaks are usually ten minutes long and it is optimal to change your gears before another round.

Another important thing is notifications. You need to set-up signals for every phase of your actions.  You need to have a preemptive ding before the sessions starts. It must be something like "get ready in 5 minutes!". Start of the session must be marked by the ring. Then there must be a five- or ten-minute window before the end of the phase so you could round things up. The end of the phase also must be marked by the ring. It will help you to keep the pace.
It is useful to keep track of your activities afterwards. Usually it is a journal entry with "activity a. result b." and so on. That way it will be easier to understand your progress and set-up realistic deadlines.

With all that in mind - you will be able to organize your working day in the most effective way.

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