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LifeAsWeThinkWeKnow

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

UBIK State College Drinking Remix Pg.65

 

"Sure you can, Francy," Don Denny said. He winked at Joe

"I was out last night," Jon Ild said. "But it was wednesday" I was doing shots at the bar.

I drank sixty-five, and I still remember them. Want to hear about it?"

"Impressive but not really, Glen," Joe chip said to Runciter."I thought only frat guys could drink that much; I

didn't know anyone else could. I-" The sound of elevator doors sliding aside made him pause; he and others

turned to look.

Potbellied, squat and thick-legged, Stanton Mick perambulated toward them. He wore birkenstock sandals, plaid shorts,

a pink shirt with his collar popped, aviator sungless, his hair gelled up in some weird style, and had both ears pierced.

His face, Joe thought; you could tell he too had been drinking last night. He was hungover, really hungover, he thought,

the most hungover I have ever seen.

"Whats up you dumb bitches," Stanton Mick said, extending his arms in fulsome greeting. "The fags are here-by that I

mean yourselves." His voice had a squeaky, penetrating castrato quality to it, an unpleasant noise that one might expect to hear,

Joe Chip thought, from a bunch of sorority girls. "The plague in the form of various psionic riff-raff, descended upon the

harmless, friendly, peaceful, world of Stanton Mick. What a day that was for us in State College- as we call our attractive thirst-

quenching bar town here. You have, of course already started drinking, as I knew you would. That's because you're tops

in your frat, as everyone realizes when Runciter Associates is mentioned. I'm already delighted at your drinking, with one

small exception that I perceive your buddy there dingling with his drink to be a big pussy.

"Pussy, would you look my way while I'm speaking to you?"

Joe put down his shot and chaser, and punched a random kid in the bar.

"Do I have your attention now?"Stanton Mick asked him.

"Yes," Joe said

"Keep drinking," Runciter ordered him.

 

 

 

 

The best way to ask for beer is to sing out Ubik. Made from select hops,

choice water, slow-aged for perfect flavor, Ubik is the nation's number-one

choice in beer. Made only in State College.

 

 

Ubik Remix Explanation

I tried to change Ubik into a kind of social context that everyone could relate to. What better to relate to
in State College than drinking? I also tried to make it comical to try and add a different style to the novel. One of
the biggest things I was looking for in choosing a page to remix was the actual text. I had to find something where
I could apply comedy and drinking yet hopefully, still have it make sense. Page sixty-five is a seemingly
uneventful page as the characters are talking about dreams that they had and more or less just starting their work.
This is the reason I chose this page because the drinking scenario I put it in seems to occur in the same way.
College kids are always just sitting around reminiscing about how much they have had to drink the night before
or who has out drank who in the past.
As far as effects on the reader go, I hope to make them sit back and just laugh at my new text. I hope
that they can see and understand how simple a page of writing can be. With a few changes I totally rework the
entire meaning of the text. The characters maintain their personalities but they are discussing and arguing about
drinking as college students. Clearly it is a vision Philip K. Dick never had for any of his characters in Ubik.
This changes the way any reader would look at this text. Would it be held in such high regard if it were a journey
of the characters drinking and arguing about how much they drank? The answer is most likely no.
Every book requires a character to grow and change throughout the novel. An author must shape his
characters the way he wants them to be seen and perceived through out the novel. By changing the characters

you can totally change the novel even if the story is still the same.


I thought this is one of the most complete turn arounds with the text. While the meaning remains the same, you change the tone of the book by adding a large comical side to the novel and also created a new modern environment with modernized characters.

Grade=A-

 

Call Me Ishmael

 

Like Call Me Ishmael said, this is one of the most complete changes with the text, but for me it wasn't as effective as it could've been. This is probably because I relate less to the drinking scenario than anything in Ubik. It was somewhat of a disconnect for me, but I see what you were doing with it and I like it. The changes you made would indeed overhaul the entire book quite effectively. I only wish it were a more truly "universal" situation...though again, it's probably my lack of appreciation for frequent heavy drinking that causes me to think that. Overall, because I think you did a great job despite my own lack of connection to it, I give it a "B". - Ceridwen

 

 

Hope everyones break went well. Mine was certifiably insane. I spent ten days with four other guys in Las Vegas. I think I am still recovering and no longer have a liver. It truly is a different world in that city. I would recommend that even if you are not the gambling/drinking/partying type that you still visit the city. No one ever sleeps, there is no time concept, and people are driven only by money. It is a very dirty city but at the same time beautiful. The casino's flashing lights and elegant entry ways are jaw dropping. You really feel like you are in a "different" place right down to the hotels and just walking around.

 

 

Are we creating laws that are in the best interest of the people? I think the answer here has to be no. The laws that are created are in the best interest of the government. Ther government must create laws to not only sustain the people but sustain itself. when was the last bill or law you can think of that was passed that was truly for the people? All we hear about now are new taxes or where the government needs more money.

 

 

Until biotelemetrics or anything the government does identity/privacy wise becomes invasive I dont think we have a problem. I do not feel that the government has ever invaded my privacy. When I go to the airport I expect to be searched for security reasons. If this someday requires an iris scan I do not see the problem there. This is simply where techonology is headed. We are a constantly advanging and changing society and have always been. 100 years ago people could never have seen what changes may have come about today and the same with the 100 years before that and that and that etc. It is only likely that none of us can predict what technological advances have been made in the next 100 years and most likely they will have been made to better our society or make it safer.

 

I read recently in the paper that they are drafting a bill to increase the amount of fines for public drinking offenses. Public drunkennes, underage drinking etc. I saw this as kinda pointless other than the fact that someone is going to get more money. When I am out drinking and of course I am always very responsible and mild mannered but I would imagine if someone were drunk and about to do something dumb they are not going to stop and say to themself oh no If I get in trouble this is going to cost me more money that it used to, I better stop. Its really worthless to increase the amount of the fines other than to get more money and i dont think that is how our local government should be doing it.

 

If they didn't raise fines for public drunkenness, they'd raise taxes. While students wouldn't be responsible for paying those taxes (rather, local permanent residents would), students use many of the services those tax dollars pay for. The borough employs several people who's only job is to clean up vomit on friday, saturday, and sunday mornings. As government employees, they're paid by tax dollars. It seems only fair that the people getting so drunk as to warrant citations pay for a larger part of such services than those who do not. - Ceridwen

 

On mobius's recent posting I like the part or question about who notices Deja vu? If you are living in a world where time is nonexistent or you can just move through it cant everything be Dejavu? It puts everything into a weird distorted perspective. In this world couldnt you constantly have the feeling you have been her before? Deja Vu exists when you are experiencing a new situation and you feel like you have been there before. But how would it exist if time did not exist and we were all knowing?

Cool post. Personally I think recognizing deja vu requires some relationship to temporality and history, otherwise how else can one be sure he/she is re-experiencing something that occurred in the past? You need the conceptual map (memory) of an experiental history before you can name something deja vu. Maybe even without that one can encounter a new "sameness" in the environment, though. -Houdini

WIKIPEDIA DEJA VU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deja_vu

 

I read an interesting piece today in the Centre Daily Times about Federal Judges and Justices of the Supreme Court. To be more specific it was about their salaries and lack there of. The salary ranges from 162,000 dollars annually for a Federal district court judge up to 212,000 dollars annually for the chief justice. However, this is not nearly enough money to keep the judges in their positions. Nineteen federal judges have left their jobs since 2004. They leave for positions to be deans of law schools or lawyers at private firms. These positions have better schedules, less strenuous work loads, less pressure, and significantly better salaries.It is very difficult for me to take a position here. On one hand you have what appears to an incredible salary in a position some people work a lifetime to achieve and on the other you have people leaving this position for better ones. I have to side with the judges. In life you leave one job for a better one and with all the things the government is spending their money on you have to think they could afford to pay these high powered positions more. Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy worries that the new judges are less qualified than the judges they are replacing. This comment alone should be enough to increase salaries. If the quality of judges on the federal level is being compromised because of a lack of compensation then something should be done.

 

Here is a link to the supreme court judges page.... http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

 

 

I have to comment again on loadstool saying how pornstars are significant. Im sorry but I just disagree. Pornstars are a dime a dozen. Any decent looking girl willing to bend over in front of a camera can be significant now I guess. If you guys want to go out to hollywood and have sex for a living go ahead but im sorry I do not see that as a significant role in society.

 

Am I the only crazy one in the world that doesnt find it a huge life changing even that Anna Nicole Smith has died> Yes ok she is dead and I feel for her loved ones, her newborn child, and people in her life that cared about her. But to be honest that is not really what I want to hear about when I turn on CNN! She really didnt do anything amazingly significant in our world. In fact she was a pornstar. {Pornstars are significant! -loadstool} I am sure I sound like an egotistical idiot that should be more sensitive about things but it really does not concern me too much. So she was in the public eye? So what! I dont really care if they are going to preserve the body or what her autopsy brings up. It was PROBABLY a DRUG OVERDOSE! Get over it

 

 

 

I had an interesting class today, well okay I take that back when is class not interesting? But this one was particularly interesting. My professor invited a woman that is in charge of managing all the financial activities for the nonprofit free health clinic here in centre county. Maybe it is just the delusioned secluded world that I live in but I sometimes forget that these things like that are really necessary in our world. Not that I am blinded by my sureal college life but sometimes I get so busy that I accidentally put my blinders on for a bit. On a separate note all together I wonder how many people sometimes get like me and just kinda miss all the poverty and bad things we have in this world. (I will leave that thought to another entry). The free clinic is doing AMAZING things and helping tons of people. The woman that spoke in my class today talked about how tons of employers (walmart, small businesses, etc) do not have or offer health care to some employees so what they do is really needed. They have some insane success stories of diagnonsing cancer and saving peoples lives. I just thought everyone should know. They are entirely non profit for the employees there and in a building which I have no idea where is entirely too small for them. Here is the only information I could find online about them.

 

Centre:

Centre Volunteers in Medicine

Contact: Mark Milliron

P.O. Box 10365, State College, PA 16805

Phone: 814-360-8297 Fax: 814-231-0138

Email: mem9@psu.edu

 

Sooo I am a people watcher. Everywhere I go I am constantly watching what people are doing, how they are acting etc. I really find it hilarious to be honest. It is so easy to tell when a guy likes a girl or vice versa and just the general actions of everyone seem amusing to me. Maybe I am crazy but does anyone else walk around and look at people and make up things about them or wonder what they are thinking? Or when you see someone having a fight you cant help but find it kinda amusing even though in their life the fight is probably a big deal. What a weird world we live in.

 

 

I was in a class the other day and in light of what I am about to talk about I can not say which class or who the professor was. During his lecture he mentioned the name of another professor again who I again can not mention but I also had this professor and knew exactly who the first one was talking about. He hinted at it what seemed to be a genuine disliking for the other professor. Not only that but he mentioned a few problems the other professor had and some questionable decisions that he had made. No one seemed to notice but me because it was a small class I knew who the other professor was but the comments to me came across as very out of place and wrong. Maybe just me or maybe everyone lives under this perception that all the teachers kinda get along because they are all in the same community. It was defintely just shocking that the professor I had openly shared information about another professor's personal life that probably could have been offensive.

 

 

I do feel that the textbook is still necessary for class. Not necessarily the most expensive ones. To be honest I have had an economics class where the teacher posted all of his notes and slides online and the textbook was not necessary and going to class was barely even needed. However, I am an english major and I think that I have learned the most in my college career from classes where we read novels or books on theory and writing and studied them and applied them in assignments and papers in class. Going to those kind of classes has made me a better student and writer. The best way for a teacher to edit more directly than the wiki is face to face and being one on one with a student. I have had professors in the past that meet with students through out the writing process of a paper and not to benefit their grade but help them along and improve their writing.

 

 

 

This is a name (life as we think we know it) that I have had in my head for a while. I am an aspiring writer and it is the name of my first book, currently in progress. I like to try and make people think about abstract ideas. What could be more abstract than life itself? I am not saying by any means that I can answer questions about life, although I certainly wish I could. However, we grow and learn about life through our experiences and call me crazy but I feel like I have been through some pretty unique ones and can actually give some decent advice. The name is just a summary of everything. "Life as we think we know it". In my mind life never really does what we think it will do and a lot of people think they know whats going on or think they know a lot about it but they really don't. We think we know but are mostly clueless

 

 

I don't know if we are ready to really take the curriculum to entirely wiki. This is the first time I have done anything like this and while I do find it really interesting I think the classroom textbook is still necessary. This "blogging" if you will is definitely a great way to learn and develop writing skills but students still need to read and write and have the teachers edit their work more directly.

How can a teacher edit "more directly" than on the wiki? -mobius

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=wilson

The link above there is to an ESPN story about Genarlow Wilson a teenage boy who was accused and sent to jail for having oral sex with another teenager. He was 17 and she was 15 at the time that it happened and because of a really old law in the state of Georgia where it occured that makes it a misdemeanor for teenagers less than two years apart to have sexual intercourse but a felony for them to have oral sex he has been sentenced to prison for ten years. That is just kind of the overall summary of the story. It is not as much of a horror/the world has wronged him story as I make it out to be, he was definitely doing things he should not have been. Bottomline though is the sentence is way too harsh and it is a little bit of an injustice thing going on. From what I have read about and learned on the subject it makes you wonder how society can and our system can treat someone so wrong that apparenty had a lot of good things going for him. Wilson was a high school athlete being recruited by several colleges and had a GPA above 3.0. If you read the story the overall point is that something is wrong and it definitely makes me wonder why nothing is being done.

Absolutely ridiculous. A fifteen year old girl is not a child, not by any stretch of the imagination. Georgia definitly dropped the ball in this case, as there is no way this person should be forced to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life. The difference between a 17 yr old and 15 yr old is not very significant, and I believe the acts of sex in this story occur all the time throughout high schools. I like to see that Mark Cuban and others are taking the time to protest the ridiculous outcome of this case. ~Peep

Comments (1)

Anonymous said

at 4:40 pm on Jan 29, 2007

I think you make a real good point with the arguement that the best way for a teacher and student to improve a student's paper is through face to face communication. This allows questions to stem from questions immediately, without any of the delays of the wiki wheather that be 2 minutes or 2 hours. Also, this helps form an actual relationship much better than any digital media ever could. You and the teacher may joke around, you can HEAR his or her laughter, read his or her expression, be sure that the teacher knows your face, who you are.

This is the soundest arguement I can find against a Wiki based composition course. If colleges were to adopt the Wiki as the medium, I feel they should definitly (as someone posted somewhere) allow students the option of English 15wiki or English 15. Let's not remove the person, let's not become 0's and 1's. ~Peep

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