who is emily

Passive Voice

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:20:00 -0800

Me: I’m totally using this to teach passive voice in a few weeks http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/28rodovich.html

Friend: that’s awesome! I want to think of more; lyrics are easier than titles: “If my sweater should be desired to be destroyed by you.”

Me: Big butts are enjoyed by me, and lies cannot be told by me. This fact cannot be denied by other brothers.

Friend: rap, huh? true to my roots. “be stopped, be collaborated with, and I may be listened to (?)” OR “this can’t be touched”

Me: Before an ocean is created by this river / before my heart is thrown back on the floor by you…

Wanderlust

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:26:00 -0800

Just got Every Time I Die’s New Junk Aesthetic on vinyl - limited edition pink vinyl, no less - and it sounds like a completely different recording. I realize it’s pretty pretentious to wax* poetic about how awesome records are, but honestly, I feel like somebody just picked enormous wads of cotton out of my ears and then threw ice water in my face. It’s like I’m emerging from Plato’s cave every time I listen to a record.

* See what I did there? Wax? Vinyl?

Teaching Composition

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:18:52 -0800

Being youngish and teaching college composition creates a whole bunch of weird situations and teacher-student interactions. One of my favorite versions of these is the awkward period at the beginning of the quarter when my students try to figure out what to call me. (The fact that I sign all my communications with them “Emily” doesn’t seem to register.)

Things My Students Have Called Me So Far This Quarter

Emily
Miss Toler
Mrs. Toler
Professor Toler
Professor Emily
Professor Etoler
Instructor

Really captures the existential desperation of modernity. hat...

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:31:00 -0800

Really captures the existential desperation of modernity.

hat tip: MM

Finally got around to listening to the new Alkaline Trio single....

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:15:13 -0800

Finally got around to listening to the new Alkaline Trio single. After Agony & Irony (which I feel is an uncannily apt title), I was ready to give up and retreat back to 2000, but I’m not totally disgusted with this. The bassline, at least, sounds like a version of the Alkaline Trio I know and love, and that gives me hope. Considering a pre-order.

Top 10 Movies of the Decade

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:19:31 -0800

Had an interesting discussion with MM tonight: we put together our Top 10 Movies of the Decade lists. The big question, of course, is how to balance personal preference (just plain liking the film) with critical knowledge (cinematography, editing, direction, casting, acting, etc.), and we wound up concluding that the single most important factor in defining our number ones was our life situation at the time.

Must be depressing to be a filmmaker, subject to the whims of fickle viewers whose assessment of the movie ultimately depends on something totally external to that movie.

Here’s my list.*

There Will Be Blood (2007)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
A Serious Man (2009)
25th Hour (2002)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Sideways (2004)
Memento (2000)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Donnie Darko (2001)

* After our discussion, in which we made our cases for why those movies should be included, I changed this list a little. This is the newest version.