The hunt for a full-time job continues, and I would like to switch strategies.
Do you have a job you would like to offer me? If so, email me a job description, including hours, starting salary, and why I won't feel like I'm wasting my time and energy and bachelor's degree at your workplace. Then I will interview you, and I will expect you to impress me despite your nerves.
If I am not impressed, I may or may not give you the courtesy of a rejection letter. I might just string you along for awhile, just to see you jump every time your phone rings during business hours.
---
Also, The Pub, a Wheaton College magazine I wrote for a time or two, has a blog now.
On this blog is an essay I wrote about Shakespeare and liturgy and an article I helped a friend edit and revise.
Showing posts with label Wheaton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wheaton. Show all posts
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Well, in this economy ...
I have followed Career Service's advice this semester and applied for jobs. Lots of jobs. Over 50 at this point, everything Monster, CareerBuilder and Craigslist could give me for the Chicago Area. I've sent my resume everywhere from the American Girl Place to the American Nuclear Society.
Last week, I got an email asking for a phone interview about a comedy writing position. I'll call the interviewer "Gary." I was slightly suspicious to begin with, since Googling the nonsense words in Gary's email signature pulled up an inordinant number of furry event calendars. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I did spend most of the following conversation trying hard to avoid imagining Gary in a fox costume.
Me: What kind of comedy writers are you looking for?
Gary: Funny ones.
Me: Right. What kind, though? Stage? Screen? Sketch?
Gary: Screen. We're working on a sitcom.
Me: What's the premise?
Gary: I can't tell you a lot, since it hasn't come out yet, and there are intellectual property laws. I can tell you it's about an oddly matched set of roommates.
My head: Like Friends or Gilligan's Island or Laverne and Shirley or the Odd Couple or Three's Company or Will and Grace or ... or ... or ...
Me: What level of content are you looking for?
Gary: Dense. Juicy. More Simpsons than Family Guy.
Me: How will it be rated?
Gary: Highly, I hope. We're shooting for a big audience.
Me: I guess I'm trying to find out what your target audience is. What kind of comedy is this?
Gary: Why do you care? Is there any kind of comedy you won't write?
Me: Well, I'm a Christian, so there are some boundaries I'll want to respect.
Gary: We are into pushing boundaries here. Why don't you come by the office, and we'll see if you're a good match for our team. Is this weekend good?
Me: Would next week work? I'm graduating from college this weekend.
Gary: Congratulations! What college?
Me: Wheaton College.
Gary: Oh. So the Christian thing ... that wasn't a joke?
Me: No.
Gary: You're serious?
Me: Yes.
Gary: Christians make me want to gouge out my own eyes.
Me: Ok.
Gary: Also, you might as well know, this sitcom is going to be mostly NC17/X. A Wheaton graduate wouldn't be a good fit for us.
Me: Probably not. Thanks for your time.
That is one for the Career Services webpage.
I'm glad he told me he was looking for comedic porn (pornographic comedy?) writers before I took a trip into the city to interview in person.
And so job search continues.
Last week, I got an email asking for a phone interview about a comedy writing position. I'll call the interviewer "Gary." I was slightly suspicious to begin with, since Googling the nonsense words in Gary's email signature pulled up an inordinant number of furry event calendars. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I did spend most of the following conversation trying hard to avoid imagining Gary in a fox costume.
Me: What kind of comedy writers are you looking for?
Gary: Funny ones.
Me: Right. What kind, though? Stage? Screen? Sketch?
Gary: Screen. We're working on a sitcom.
Me: What's the premise?
Gary: I can't tell you a lot, since it hasn't come out yet, and there are intellectual property laws. I can tell you it's about an oddly matched set of roommates.
My head: Like Friends or Gilligan's Island or Laverne and Shirley or the Odd Couple or Three's Company or Will and Grace or ... or ... or ...
Me: What level of content are you looking for?
Gary: Dense. Juicy. More Simpsons than Family Guy.
Me: How will it be rated?
Gary: Highly, I hope. We're shooting for a big audience.
Me: I guess I'm trying to find out what your target audience is. What kind of comedy is this?
Gary: Why do you care? Is there any kind of comedy you won't write?
Me: Well, I'm a Christian, so there are some boundaries I'll want to respect.
Gary:
Me: Would next week work? I'm graduating from college this weekend.
Gary: Congratulations! What college?
Me: Wheaton College.
Gary: Oh. So the Christian thing ... that wasn't a joke?
Me: No.
Gary: You're serious?
Me: Yes.
Gary: Christians make me want to gouge out my own eyes.
Me: Ok.
Gary: Also, you might as well know, this sitcom is going to be mostly NC17/X. A Wheaton graduate wouldn't be a good fit for us.
Me: Probably not. Thanks for your time.
That is one for the Career Services webpage.
I'm glad he told me he was looking for comedic porn (pornographic comedy?) writers before I took a trip into the city to interview in person.
And so job search continues.
Friday, May 1, 2009
And I didn't know this, either.
I submitted a collage to Kodon to see what an art rejection letter looked like.
I didn't find out. Instead, I got published.* It has been four years now, and I do not suppose I will ever understand Wheaton College.
Title: Bird watching
Medium: Christianity Today, Vogue, packing tape
*My writing, on the other hand, was rejected entirely, including the poem from the previous post.
I didn't find out. Instead, I got published.* It has been four years now, and I do not suppose I will ever understand Wheaton College.
Title: Bird watching
Medium: Christianity Today, Vogue, packing tape
*My writing, on the other hand, was rejected entirely, including the poem from the previous post.
Monday, March 2, 2009
"Who do you say that I am?"
Jim Young, the founder of Wheaton's Arena Theater, used to say, "I keep finding Jesus in places I thought he had no business being." Arena continues the tradition of looking for God in unlikely places in a class called Church and Theater.
The thesis: Theater asks questions, and the church provides a safe, nurturing context in which to wrestle with those questions. So how do we go about asking those questions in artistic ways that point people toward God?
Christians, especially Christians in the arts, cannot ignore the media's portrayal of Jesus. We have to trust that our faith is solid enough to stand being rattled around some. The first half of the semester, then, is about who our culture says Jesus is. This translates into our watching a lot of heretical movies.
---
Yiimimangaliso
: The Mysteries
In the tradition of medieval mystery plays, Yiimimangaliso hits the high points of the redemption story from creation to Pentacost. The company is from South African.
The story of God's relationship with humanity is told mostly through percussion and dance, with smatterings of English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa. Angels wear chicken feathers. Adam and Eve are completely nude. Lucifer wears red pleather. Noah's flood mostly uses a watering can, and Jesus' entire childhood is depicted in a short, rhythmic game.
The only thing I can picture being offensive (unless you find dance in church offensive) is the occasional resemblance to minstrel shows. The company, though, is South African, not African American, so I don't know their familiarity with minstrelsy.
---
Leonard
Bernstein's Mass
Unlike the other pieces we've talked about together, Bernstein's not-exactly-a-musical-and-not-quite-an-opera-and-certainly-not-a-straight-Mass is the only one that does not portray Jesus explicitly. The Celebrant and choir sing the traditional Latin text for the Mass, and they are interrupted periodically by parishioners voicing their doubts and demands. The chaos eventually takes its toll on the Celebrant (pastor). The congregation turns on him and demands he fix their lives. He eventually burns out, drops the chalice, and notices for the first time that red wine isn't red at all, but sort of brown and blue. He also rhymes "Adonai" with "I don't know," which gets him major points in my nerdy writing major book.
Some Wheaton friends accuse me of cynicism about the church, but I grew up in Greenville, Texas. Specifically, I grew up in Aldersgate (nondenominational) and then Highland Terrace (Southern Baptist), which gives me a juicy background of having some pastors being run off and other pastors running off on their own, all while their congregations squabble over nothing in particular. Bernstein's Mass portrays the church not as it should be but as it often is -- rich in history and truth but filled with people who are sometimes actively destructive, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes quietly struggling, and pastors aren't immune.
I have listened to the soundtrack on my own at least five times since we heard it in class.
---
Chocolate Jesus
Cosimo Cavallaro exhibited his anatomically correct sculpture of Jesus during Holy Week 2007. It is entirely chocolate. We could neither confirm nor deny Cavallaro's interest in Tom Waits' Mule Variations.
I am less offended by this now that Walgreens has their Easter candy out. There are chocolate crosses right there next to the bunnies and eggs. They are four dollars. I am much more offended by those than by the Cavallaro sculpture. We are supposed to eat the body of Christ, though it is usually somewhat healthier -- a torn piece of bread or an oyster cracker.
There is nothing cute about this Cavallaro's Jesus. He is naked and in pain. The crosses at Walgreens were adorable enough to make you forget they were instruments of torture. Nobody eats chocolate electric chairs or even chocolate guns.
---
Jesus of Montreal
It's 1988, and a Canadian bishop asks a young director to revamp the parish's decades-old passion play. The director gathers actors -- some with more experience in beer commercials than any other venue -- and revamps not only the presentation of the Passion story but also the entire script, incorporating recent archeological digs in the Palestine and soliloquys from Hamlet. The Catholic church is not pleased.
As the film goes on, the actors get their own identities entangled with their characters, and the movie becomes allegorical. The actors are disciples. The director is Jesus. A slick lawyer is Satan. A film studio is the temple. Art is religion.
That last bit is where I have the hiccough: It seems like art turns into a replacement religion somewhere along the way. That, as well as a few stray comments about everyone finding their own seperate paths to salvation, is probably why the movie was considered so offensive. Unless I missed something, which is possible, since the movie was in French and subtitles don't always cut it.
Oh, and crucifixion is crucifixion, and ____ ______ is resurrection. I won't ruin it for you; see the movie.
---
But I am about to ruin another movie, because neither its craft nor its theology earn it a recommendation.
The Last Temptation of Christ
I once heard a speaker at a youth camp say that, ever since this movie came out, he's boycotted everything by anyone involved in the abomination, and he encouraged us to do the same. (I know David Bowie's pocketbook is seriously hurting from losing his teenage Southern Baptist demographic after his role as Pontius Pilate.)
Willem Dafoe is a kind of anti-Christ, not in a Tim LaHaye/Jerry B. Jenkins sense, but in that his attitude is opposite of Christ's in almost every scene. Scorsese's Christ is not sinless, he's just too cowardly to commit any particularly noteworthy sins. He wants to be a regular guy, but God won't leave him alone. Neither will Satan, for that matter. As a result, he comes down off the cross, gets married a few times, has kids, chews out Paul for misrepresenting him. Judas acts like the only one with much sense at all; despite Judas' best efforts, Jesus has ruined humanity's chance at salvation. Maybe there are other interpretations, but that's what came across after one (admittedly sleepy) viewing.
Any Christians left in the theater probably walked out by the Jesus/Mary Magdelene sex scene (which our professor graciously censored), but they missed the big surprise twist at the end of the movie:
It was a dream. The whole time. Like Dorothy and Donnie, Jesus has a vision of an outrageous scenario in which he escapes the regular world and has a chance to do what he's always wanted to do. Then he wakes up, back on the cross, and the credits roll in all their 80's majesty. Peter Gabriel sings.
It's like bad Bible fanfiction. As far as craft goes, Last Temptation is to film as Left Behind is to literature. It just happens to swing crazy-liberal instead of crazy-conservative. I don't know which one is more upsetting. Last Temptation is more blasphemous, but Left Behind is more misleading. At least Scorsese disclaimed at the beginning that his film is not based at all on the Gospels, while LaHaye and Jenkins are marketed like their novels are realistic portrayals of Revelation.
---
The media saturates us with its own images of Jesus and the church. They are loudest when they use a microphone and megaphone at the same time. What are they finding out about him when they come to church?
The thesis: Theater asks questions, and the church provides a safe, nurturing context in which to wrestle with those questions. So how do we go about asking those questions in artistic ways that point people toward God?
Christians, especially Christians in the arts, cannot ignore the media's portrayal of Jesus. We have to trust that our faith is solid enough to stand being rattled around some. The first half of the semester, then, is about who our culture says Jesus is. This translates into our watching a lot of heretical movies.
---
Yiimimangaliso
: The MysteriesIn the tradition of medieval mystery plays, Yiimimangaliso hits the high points of the redemption story from creation to Pentacost. The company is from South African.
The story of God's relationship with humanity is told mostly through percussion and dance, with smatterings of English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa. Angels wear chicken feathers. Adam and Eve are completely nude. Lucifer wears red pleather. Noah's flood mostly uses a watering can, and Jesus' entire childhood is depicted in a short, rhythmic game.
The only thing I can picture being offensive (unless you find dance in church offensive) is the occasional resemblance to minstrel shows. The company, though, is South African, not African American, so I don't know their familiarity with minstrelsy.
---
Leonard
Bernstein's MassUnlike the other pieces we've talked about together, Bernstein's not-exactly-a-musical-and-not-quite-an-opera-and-certainly-not-a-straight-Mass is the only one that does not portray Jesus explicitly. The Celebrant and choir sing the traditional Latin text for the Mass, and they are interrupted periodically by parishioners voicing their doubts and demands. The chaos eventually takes its toll on the Celebrant (pastor). The congregation turns on him and demands he fix their lives. He eventually burns out, drops the chalice, and notices for the first time that red wine isn't red at all, but sort of brown and blue. He also rhymes "Adonai" with "I don't know," which gets him major points in my nerdy writing major book.
Some Wheaton friends accuse me of cynicism about the church, but I grew up in Greenville, Texas. Specifically, I grew up in Aldersgate (nondenominational) and then Highland Terrace (Southern Baptist), which gives me a juicy background of having some pastors being run off and other pastors running off on their own, all while their congregations squabble over nothing in particular. Bernstein's Mass portrays the church not as it should be but as it often is -- rich in history and truth but filled with people who are sometimes actively destructive, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes quietly struggling, and pastors aren't immune.
I have listened to the soundtrack on my own at least five times since we heard it in class.
---
Chocolate Jesus
Cosimo Cavallaro exhibited his anatomically correct sculpture of Jesus during Holy Week 2007. It is entirely chocolate. We could neither confirm nor deny Cavallaro's interest in Tom Waits' Mule Variations.I am less offended by this now that Walgreens has their Easter candy out. There are chocolate crosses right there next to the bunnies and eggs. They are four dollars. I am much more offended by those than by the Cavallaro sculpture. We are supposed to eat the body of Christ, though it is usually somewhat healthier -- a torn piece of bread or an oyster cracker.
There is nothing cute about this Cavallaro's Jesus. He is naked and in pain. The crosses at Walgreens were adorable enough to make you forget they were instruments of torture. Nobody eats chocolate electric chairs or even chocolate guns.
---
Jesus of Montreal
It's 1988, and a Canadian bishop asks a young director to revamp the parish's decades-old passion play. The director gathers actors -- some with more experience in beer commercials than any other venue -- and revamps not only the presentation of the Passion story but also the entire script, incorporating recent archeological digs in the Palestine and soliloquys from Hamlet. The Catholic church is not pleased.As the film goes on, the actors get their own identities entangled with their characters, and the movie becomes allegorical. The actors are disciples. The director is Jesus. A slick lawyer is Satan. A film studio is the temple. Art is religion.
That last bit is where I have the hiccough: It seems like art turns into a replacement religion somewhere along the way. That, as well as a few stray comments about everyone finding their own seperate paths to salvation, is probably why the movie was considered so offensive. Unless I missed something, which is possible, since the movie was in French and subtitles don't always cut it.
Oh, and crucifixion is crucifixion, and ____ ______ is resurrection. I won't ruin it for you; see the movie.
---
But I am about to ruin another movie, because neither its craft nor its theology earn it a recommendation.
The Last Temptation of Christ
I once heard a speaker at a youth camp say that, ever since this movie came out, he's boycotted everything by anyone involved in the abomination, and he encouraged us to do the same. (I know David Bowie's pocketbook is seriously hurting from losing his teenage Southern Baptist demographic after his role as Pontius Pilate.)Willem Dafoe is a kind of anti-Christ, not in a Tim LaHaye/Jerry B. Jenkins sense, but in that his attitude is opposite of Christ's in almost every scene. Scorsese's Christ is not sinless, he's just too cowardly to commit any particularly noteworthy sins. He wants to be a regular guy, but God won't leave him alone. Neither will Satan, for that matter. As a result, he comes down off the cross, gets married a few times, has kids, chews out Paul for misrepresenting him. Judas acts like the only one with much sense at all; despite Judas' best efforts, Jesus has ruined humanity's chance at salvation. Maybe there are other interpretations, but that's what came across after one (admittedly sleepy) viewing.
Any Christians left in the theater probably walked out by the Jesus/Mary Magdelene sex scene (which our professor graciously censored), but they missed the big surprise twist at the end of the movie:
It was a dream. The whole time. Like Dorothy and Donnie, Jesus has a vision of an outrageous scenario in which he escapes the regular world and has a chance to do what he's always wanted to do. Then he wakes up, back on the cross, and the credits roll in all their 80's majesty. Peter Gabriel sings.
It's like bad Bible fanfiction. As far as craft goes, Last Temptation is to film as Left Behind is to literature. It just happens to swing crazy-liberal instead of crazy-conservative. I don't know which one is more upsetting. Last Temptation is more blasphemous, but Left Behind is more misleading. At least Scorsese disclaimed at the beginning that his film is not based at all on the Gospels, while LaHaye and Jenkins are marketed like their novels are realistic portrayals of Revelation.
---
The media saturates us with its own images of Jesus and the church. They are loudest when they use a microphone and megaphone at the same time. What are they finding out about him when they come to church?
Ain't it crazy
What's revealed when you're not looking all that close
Ain't it crazy
How we put to death the ones we need the most?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
It feels like years since you've been here.
Dear the sun,
Hey, how are you? More importantly, where are you?
We all miss you. No one even makes eye contact walking down the sidewalk. We stare at our boots and hide in our scarves.
Right now it feels like you've never been here, like we've lived like this forever, like nothing will ever change. Things have lost their warmth and color.
I know I've gotten upset at you before for coming on too strong, even for burning me, but all that's behind us now. Forgive me for complaining? I want you to come back. I miss you.
Love and tearcicles,
Alyssa
Hey, how are you? More importantly, where are you?
We all miss you. No one even makes eye contact walking down the sidewalk. We stare at our boots and hide in our scarves.
Right now it feels like you've never been here, like we've lived like this forever, like nothing will ever change. Things have lost their warmth and color.
I know I've gotten upset at you before for coming on too strong, even for burning me, but all that's behind us now. Forgive me for complaining? I want you to come back. I miss you.
Love and tearcicles,
Alyssa
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Dreaming through the Noise
It's been three months since I posted. Since then, my time has been taken up by:
- Getting flooded. I was homeless for a very short period in August, a time that culminated in a tornado, pepper spray, and getting lost in the parking lot of Nordstrom's.
- Finding the rhythm of school.
- Living in a very dramatic house that is mostly full of theater girls.
- Memorizing a lot of Shakespeare.
- Directing Faux Posse and Post Script Ambiguity for wheatonIMPROV.
- Cowering at the prospect of job and/or graduate school applications.
Amidst the insanity, why the revival of the blog? Currently, I am confined, restless, to a couch. My voice is completely gone, as gone as the sun, the maple leaves, free time. I hope my voice returns sooner than any of those things are liable to here to Wheaton College.
It has made me seasick to try and read for school. That might have less to do with the head cold and more to do with that the book of the moment is Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner. Reading Miss Rosa's memories feels like watching a scene filmed without a tripod, Blair Witch style. I suspect anyone trying to decipher the Sutpen family tree would be a little disoriented, even without the cold medicine.
So instead of reading Faulkner, writing an annotated bibliography, drafting a prompt book, rehearsing As You Like It, or working on my grad school application, I am drinking juice through a straw, dozing through Vienna Teng albums, binging on Pushing Daisies -- I am coveting all of Chuck's clothes, though I'm not sure they'd be as fun in a shades-of-gray Chicago winter; they might only work in a world of supersaturated color -- and fighting off the gathering panic about how behind I'm going to be when I go back to class.
---
And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me
Face pressed into the corduroy grooves
Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move.
- Getting flooded. I was homeless for a very short period in August, a time that culminated in a tornado, pepper spray, and getting lost in the parking lot of Nordstrom's.
- Finding the rhythm of school.
- Living in a very dramatic house that is mostly full of theater girls.
- Memorizing a lot of Shakespeare.
- Directing Faux Posse and Post Script Ambiguity for wheatonIMPROV.
- Cowering at the prospect of job and/or graduate school applications.
Amidst the insanity, why the revival of the blog? Currently, I am confined, restless, to a couch. My voice is completely gone, as gone as the sun, the maple leaves, free time. I hope my voice returns sooner than any of those things are liable to here to Wheaton College.
It has made me seasick to try and read for school. That might have less to do with the head cold and more to do with that the book of the moment is Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner. Reading Miss Rosa's memories feels like watching a scene filmed without a tripod, Blair Witch style. I suspect anyone trying to decipher the Sutpen family tree would be a little disoriented, even without the cold medicine.
So instead of reading Faulkner, writing an annotated bibliography, drafting a prompt book, rehearsing As You Like It, or working on my grad school application, I am drinking juice through a straw, dozing through Vienna Teng albums, binging on Pushing Daisies -- I am coveting all of Chuck's clothes, though I'm not sure they'd be as fun in a shades-of-gray Chicago winter; they might only work in a world of supersaturated color -- and fighting off the gathering panic about how behind I'm going to be when I go back to class.
---
And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me
Face pressed into the corduroy grooves
Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move.
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