essaysbysean.com “When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know,what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.” James Baldwin Hi, how are you? —Hurray!— The count just reached two hundred […]
Comic strips Add to Quality of Life
seanessay.com Sometimes, I read comics while musing on the roads not taken “See you in the funny papers:” Did your loved ones say goodby that way? My brother often did. People who read the funny pages of modern newspapers don’t know what they’re missing. The four-panel newspaper comics of my day were funnier because they […]
Phonics and Whole Word, Smashed by Human Nature
seanessay.com There’s anger in New York City over the state of children’s reading ability. Recently a retired New York English professor has been bitter about the school board, under “Calkins,” teaching “whole word.” He blogged that “evidence-based” science would presumably support, instead, teaching by using phonics, as in having children read by sounding out the […]
Liking Alita the Angel, but not SJWs
seanessay.com Alita: Battle Angel is back in the cheap theatres! Hurray! I once felt moved to defend it from unkind social justice warriors. (SJWs) Here is my old post, condensed: Madeline wrote: “Moviegoers give this film 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, while critics give it 52%… Does anyone see the problem here?” I was on Youtube, […]
Patterning Sentences For Fun and Profit
seanessay.com As a writer, I like to try patterns: Dusk Well. I wonder. Was it god’s will? My hard-drive is scrubbed. Sticky notes of useful quotes, gone. Any need for excerpts cut and pasted? Sentimental souvenirs may comfort; life is lived now. Unmoor the boat and row in currents of life. As for my novel, […]
Lucky Blog
seanessay.com The template I use is called cenote, after those deep natural wells in Mexico. Of the six essays displayed on the page, I could set each opening paragraph to be the most striking graph within each piece, but I don’t, reasoning that long-time readers don’t want to be blog-baited that way. Other templates might […]