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Gone Too Soon: the Real-Life Loss of Spartacus
When I first discovered Spartacus: Blood and Sand four years ago, I wasn’t sure I would like it. The Starz series was marketed as a graphic and stylized telling of the world’s most famous gladiator...
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My Summer Reading (And Yes, I Know It’s December): Or… My Take on the Endings...
With the year coming to a close, this seemed as good as time as any to talk about endings. Endings come in all stripes. You’ve got your happy endings and your sad endings, your...
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Escher: Three Spheres, Two Dimensions, One Mad Genius
(Note: Last week, several students did an impressive presentation on the art of M.C. Escher, and I was reminded of a paper I wrote in college, some oh-twenty-one years ago. So I pulled the paper– which...
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“Rosie,” You’re Still the One: A Look Back at Springsteen’s “Rosalita”
This December, I gave my Composition students an early Christmas gift: I played “Rosalita” for them. They needed it. Desperately. About a month prior, I name-dropped Springsteen on a quiz. (“Combine...
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Martin Luther King: The English Teacher’s Hero
Obviously, Martin Luther King has done so much for humanity. But how often do we take the time to celebrate what MLK has done for that curious subset of humanity, high school English teachers? I have...
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Irish Eyes Still Smiling
Note from Mark: Below is the eulogy I read at my grandmother’s funeral. She died in August 2011, at the age of 94. My wife Sheri told me, some time ago, that I should post this, and I never did, but...
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Super-Literature-Trivia-Bowl
Since today is the Super Bowl, and since football is the only pro-sports organization (to my knowledge) that has a team named after a work of literature– i.e. the Baltimore Ravens, named after the...
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“Dear Sir or Madam, Will You Read My Blog?” Five Beatles Songs That Tell Stories
“Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my blog?/ It took me days to write, will you feed my dog?” –“Paperback Writer,” the Beatles (slightly paraphrased) The recent hullabaloo about the Beatles’ 50th...
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Everything Is Awesome… And Everything Lego Is Awesomely Imaginative!
Note from Mark: The Oscars are this Sunday, and I probably won’t be watching– solely because I haven’t seen any of the movies up for any of the major awards. But in honor of the Oscars, I thought I...
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The Second Annual St. Patrick’s Day Literary Quiz
It’s time, once again, to GO GREEN or Go Home. It’s our 2nd annual, 17-question St. Patrick Literary Quiz. (To see last year’s quiz, click here.) All questions have to do with Irish stuff– Irish...
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Ultimate Ending
“Well, Vince asked me a couple years ago (to go into the WWE Hall of Fame)… and I said no. I said they had to tell the right story. So we negotiated for two years to get to the place where I knew...
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The “Promposal” Phenomenon
“So, you’re saying skywriting’s out, then?” “I’d say so.” Scotty knew whom he wanted to ask to the junior prom: Jill, from AP Biology. He just didn’t know how to ask her. And as any sixteen-year-old...
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Thoughtjogger, Vol 1: Soundtrack of a Jog
So, last week, I went out for a short jog, and I had an idea. (Yeah, I had the idea a week ago… it just took a while for me to write the darn thing…) Anyway, the idea was this: why not write a blog...
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Field of Dreams/ Catcher in the Rye Connections– Revisted
Author’s Note: six years ago now, I posted an article on my old site (teachertrenches.blogspot.com) about the connections between the film Field of Dreams and the J. D. Salinger novel Catcher in the...
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Promises to Keep (To Myself, To Write a Blog Post)
A few evenings ago, I hosted a discussion of Winter Poetry at my local library. While I was selecting the poems to include, my wife said I had to pick Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snow...
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The Creation of “Silent Night” (Play)
Note: Several years ago now, I wrote a play for my sons, nieces and nephews, to be performed on Christmas night. They didn’t exactly know about it ahead of time, but man, did they ever get into it....
View ArticleDominentur: City of the Derelict
There were people in the Derelict. The startling realization hit me like a thunderbolt. So many had disappeared within the Derelicts steel walls. Everyone had always assumed that they had died. But,...
View ArticleComparing 5 Famous Fictional Resources
Recently, I’ve written a post about underappreciated natural resources. And while the use of each of the resources mentioned will spice up a story, none of them will be as versatile as a resource......
View ArticlePower in the Derelict
Life as a serf was less fun than one would think. Of course, one wouldn’t think highly of being a serf given the historical precedent. But, when I allowed myself to become a serf,... The post Power in...
View ArticleA Beginners Guide to Time Travel
Time travel is a curious tool in the sci-fi genre. Authors can use it for amazing, mind-bending stories. However, more often than not, it just confuses the audience. Avengers Endgame was a masterpiece,...
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