I never once mention the author’s name

BOOKS + BEER: Dune and Budweiser

Why? Because a student handed me the book and suggested I read it? No. Students routinely want me to read books and they are usually this one, or Neil Gaiman and I’m not reading any fucking Neil Gaiman. I’m an adult. I read it because so many of my students are writing Sci Fi lately. From a genre trickle to categorical gusher. Could be my doing this semester. I instructed them to write a QUEST. I think some of their brains went quest=genre, though I showed them many, many quests that were just like two dudes trying to get to Hollywood or the latest Jennifer Aniston Must-Get-A-Man flick or just some guy swimming away into cognitive dissonance or a newlywed couple needing to rob McDonald’s but no/no/no they go genre, fantasy or Sci Fi.  That’s OK. I mean we had no zombies. (Best zombie film to show students about genre irrelevant—characters matter.) I could be like some in academia (and literary publishing) and say no to genre. OR…I could admit many literary works are indeed gestures of genre…OR I could/should meet the students half way and feel a need to increase my knowledge base on Sci Fi, admit I haven’t read Sci Fi in many years (is Vonnegut Sci Fi?) and so feel a pedagogical necessity to read something and Dune is on all the lists and I know Sting is in the movie version (though I’ve never seen it and have no plans to) and so here we go into the box, the hour glass, the sand.

Three things we know: 1. You can show all the patriotic commercials in the world, but Anheuser Busch is still a company owned by Belgium. 2. Women die when they get near August Anheuser Busch IV. 3. Budweiser is Ok to drink. Not great. Not absolutely bad. (Fuck off, beer snobs, we know how much you blar this beer and, honestly, it’s a little ridiculous.) But OK, an OK beer, in certain situations…

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Random & Technology / 27 Comments
December 13th, 2011 / 11:17 am