Under the Skin

Sometimes, there are songs where something in the lyrics makes you want to laugh.  For example, "You're like a tattoo.  I'll always have you."    So, the person is something that you'll regret later when it becomes irrelevant to your life?  However, I feel like there are two recent songs that take the cake when it comes to failing at lyric-writing.  And both of these come from the rhyme situation.  I have news for young songwriters and poets. 1)  It doesn't HAVE to rhyme. 2) It not rhyming doesn't make it more artistic The best thing, really, is for it to have a middle ground.  If your poetry pattern fits to rhymes, do it.  If it doesn't, go ahead and don't.  But it still needs a pattern or rhythm to be a poem.  And, I present to you two songs that show the opposite ends of the rhyme spectrum. "Grenade" (Bruno Mars)   I like Bruno Mars a fair bit of the time.  However, this song is the biggest lyric fai...

As an American Heritage TA, I am stereotypically sensitive to patriotic things.  And we, as TAs, have been known to do things like cry in the American Independence lecture.  And stuff like that.  And also, each semester, I tell myself that I won't cry reading Thomas Paine's "The American Crisis."  But, quite frankly, I can't do it.  I cry every time. It's just so powerful.  The man was a genius with the pen.  And if he weren't so crazy, we probably should have had him write the Declaration of Independence.  But, Mr. Jefferson did that, because Thomas Paine wasn't too big on the rational philosophy.  He was kind of like Gale in The Hunger Games.  When the rebellion is over, he has no purpose and has to go find a life that still involves rebellion. But, he could write.  Oh, could he write.  And here, I include, for your reading pleasure, an excerpt from Thomas Paine's "The American Crisis:" "THESE are the times that try men...

Tonight, I was making peanut butter cookie bars.  When my roommate asked why, I said, "Because the guys in the research lab wanted cookie bars, knew that I had tests tomorrow, knew that I like to bake when I'm stressed, and so they asked me to make peanut butter cookie bars for them." My roommate's basically-fiance then asked me, "Are the guys in the lab chauvinists?" in a somewhat joking way. I told him that I don't think so, and I don't.  Do they ask me to make them cookies, most likely because I'm a woman?  Yes.  Do they always want one of the few girls in charge of refreshments at lab meetings because they are women?  Probably.  But, I don't feel like they're chauvinists.  We are, frankly, the epitomes of emancipated women.  We are women in a Molecular Microbiology Research Lab.  And when I come in, finish my work, and say to the grad students, "Do you need me to do anything?" they treat me like a capable undergrad.  ...

I have to be honest.  There are few phrases on this earth that I can stand less than, "Let's not judge."   It's not so much the actual semantic meaning that bothers me.  In fact, I can agree with the actual meaning of it. But it is the way that it is applied.  If I am lovingly and anonymously saying, "I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, who has really made some bad choices in her life..." I don't really want to hear, "Well, you can't judge."  You're right.  But, judging her would be saying, "I have this friend who is just an evil person."  This is merely an evaluation of her choices, many of which you would have to be crazy to call "good choices." In fact, saying someone has a judgmental heart (which is not an uncommon phrase amongst Mormons), is one of the most judgmental things you could say.  That being said, in the LDS faith, we hate talking about live people's choices as good or bad, for fear ...