radfrac_archive_full

I like my medical plan so far. Today it meant watching Son of Rambow (2007) and listening to a self-effacing (yet rugged) guy wearing the Spoiler Shirt introduce us to the Art of Film. I don't think anyone else in the class is over 30, or even has thought about what it might be like to be 30, one day, in the strange and distant caverns of the future. I saw one guy going in with the crowd and thought, "Oh hey, he's kind of old," but that was the prof.

B. lent me the textbook, which gladdens me because 1. Savings and 2. It seems not to be very good.

As health coverage I rate Rambow high. It has strong thematic commonalities with Frank (2014) -- don't sell out your art for popularity -- and Sideways (2004) -- art as reparation for life's failures. I think I find this film the most successful. Unlike everyone, I didn't like Sideways. I did like Frank, though I thought that Frank was not quite the thing the movie itself advocated -- that is, it was not an uncompromising personal vision.

Rambow's very aware of itself as a constructed artifact, as a movie -- lots of self-aware visuals and some of that "full circle" plotting that ususally sets my teeth on edge -- but I think it mostly works. I may have teared up. And overflowed slightly. Not more than three times.

I'm already thinking of bailing on ModPo -- The content is fantastic, but I don't think I'll have the commitment to keep up with the assignments on top of everything that's actually happening in real life / for credit. I don't think I like the format of an online/video course very much. That is -- I think it's a brilliant way to bring the course to thousands more people than could take it in person. But as I am, in fact, taking a course in person -- and also attending a poetry group in person -- I may just watch the videos.

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