As Bob Dylan will be turning 70 on Tuesday, I figured we should celebrate it properly... w/ a week of blog posts! Before we get there though, it also seems like a quick overview of this weekend's Computers & Writing Conference @ UofM. It was fantastic. The Sweetland Center for Writing knows how to host a conference! I went to a few of the sessions on Saturday plus the luncheon/Keynote address. They were all really interesting & will clearly influence my classroom stuff in the very near future.
* I think I may go back to using blogs in the class room again. It didn't go over too well the last time, but w/ a few new ideas, I think I've got a better handle on it.
* I also think I way go paperless this fall. I'm kind of afraid of this idea, but it sounds pretty fun. Maybe not in lit classes, but probably in comp classes.
To top it off, our panel was awesome. Steve had a timer w/ an elephant noise that went off @ 3 minutes. I was the only douche to go over the time. I knew it would happen, but I was able to cut back on a bit of what I posted in the previous post. Everyone was great, & while the size of the room seemed a bit much when I walked in, there was a great crowd & they all stayed passed the 9:45 cut off time. There was a great conversation & most were backchanneling which was then noticed by people in other sessions who started talking about what we were doing. We kind of hi-jacked their stuff, I suppose, but it was fun. Then, @ lunch, people were asking what I'd done, & when they heard which panel I was on, they were saying things like "Oh, I heard about that one... I wish I could have been there."
There's already been a lot of talk about expanding it for another time. it should be great. It'd been a while since my last conference; I so glad I went.
* Here's Steve's reaction
* Here's Bradley Dilger's reaction
* Here's Virginia Kuhn's reaction
And now... drum roll... Dylan's b-day post 1:
In celebration, I made a fancy Dylan Bio display @ Nicola's today. We'll see if anyone actually buys any of them. As a side note, he's the only person in the whole store w/ enough bios to fill an entire display by himself other than a few presidents (Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Reagan, GWB, & Obama). There are a lot of books about Jesus, Muhammad, & Buddha, but I wouldn't call them bios, necessarily. We also listened to the 1st 5 discs of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series (of course, there was nothing selfish about pushing that on everyone). The 1st three came out in 1991 & include out-takes & alternate versions of his songs spanning the entirety of his career until that point. The next 2 discs were released in 1998 & highlight his tour of England from 1965 (the 1st disc is solo & acoustic; the 2nd disc is electric w/ The Band). Stay tuned for reflections on the rest of this week's celebration which should include viewings of his 4 main films (Don't Look Back, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Renaldo & Clara, & Masked & Anonymous). I also plan to listen to more of his stuff, & I think I'll post a link to some of his rehearsals... namely the ones w/ The grateful Dead from 1987... be sure to check out their jumbled version of "Boy in the Bubble"... it's hilarious. I may also start up "Lookin' to Get Silly" again. I haven't posted there since February. I kind of got tired of making dick jokes, but some new ones have presented themselves today after listening to so much lately.
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