The eNotes Blog The Only Power You Have is the Power to Discriminate Robert Crumb OnWriters

The Only Power You Have is the Power to Discriminate Robert Crumb OnWriters Robert Crumb, or R. Crumb, as he is widely known,   was the founder and undisputed leader of the Underground comix movement, a collection of rogue artists whose critical and subversive views often satirized American culture in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the elements that makes Crumbs work so compelling is that he knows what he is skewering. The man was, and is, widely read and has a rich background in all of the arts, including, but certainly not limited to, artists, both comic and traditional, and writers, both famous and infamous. Though deeply troubled and eccentric, (to say the least), Crumbs observations are often interesting and worthy of consideration. Here is what he has had to say about writers: Mark Twain: I think he was a good commentator on the late 19th century. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn don’t do that much for me. But his later stuff, he gets more cranky as he gets older. His critique gets more interesting. When I was 15, I read What Is Man? and it made a profound impression on me. It changed my life. It’s all about predestination versus freewill. He was a big believer in predestination. He didn’t think we had any free will. And he puts down religion and everything. I was, at that time, still a Catholic believer when I read that. My brother Charles and I found that book on the floor in an abandoned house along with some other moldy books. So I took it home and read it. Afterward, I told my aunt about it. She was a strong Catholic the whole family was Catholic no one ever questioned anything. So I told my aunt about it and she said, Oh, can I read that? That sounds interesting. So I lent it to her and about a week later she was over at our house and she s aid, You know that book you lent me? I burned it. [laughs] So that’s my experience with Mark Twain. Charles Bukowski Yeah, when he was in social situations, he desperately  wanted to numb himself with alcohol. He was very uncomfortable around people; a very solitary guy basically. He wanted to get laid and all that but [starts laughing] The last time I saw Bukowski, he came to this party in San Francisco, it was a poetry reading. And these two women that I knew (Susan and Jane, I actually did a comic strip about them,) they just kind of closed in on Bukowski. One was talking to him in one ear and the other was talking to him in his other ear. He was standing there with a beer bottle in each hand and getting drunk as fast as he could. And the last moment I saw him, they were leading him off to the bedroom. That’s the last time I ever saw Bukowski. William Burroughs I love Burroughs also; a great writer. But his best writing is his straight-ahead prose. He wrote all this crazy fantasy stuff, which I think he was encouraged to do by this other beatnik writer, Brian Gyson, who, for some reason Burroughs admired. Gyson was, I think, a jive-ass, bullshit kind of guy. Burroughs, I think he lacked confidence in his own writing, because when he wrote straight prose it didn’t sell well. When he wrote  Junkie, and that came out, it didn’t sell well in the beginning. And then he wrote this other book, Queer, around the same time in the early ’50s and he couldn’t even get that published. That wasn’t published until the 1980s. And  Queer  is a great book. Both Junkie and Queer are great. They’re both written in this very dry, prose style. And his little thin book called the Yage Letters, which were letters he wrote back to Allen Ginsburg while he was in South America looking for this psychedelic Yage plant. Th at’s a great book; great stuff. But the problem is, there’s not enough of that, not enough of his straight-ahead prose. He just didn’t think it was any good because he either couldn’t get it published or it didn’t sell. So then he wrote this gimmicky thing called Naked Lunch, which is mostly fantasy stuff and not very interesting to me, and that sold well. He made his reputation on Naked Lunch. Anne Frank I never actually read the Diary of Anne Frank, but I visited her house in Amsterdam. It was interesting. On the wall of her attic room where she lived there’s still these pictures of movies stars of that period taped to the wall, movie stars that she was romantic about. That was the thing that touched me the most, that you saw this typical, young girl of the time with these glamour-boy photos taped to the wall in her room. Yet, you know, just because she was Jewish, they took her away. Humans can be cold-blooded that way. And on a large scale. In fact, it’s easier to be collectively cold-blooded. That removes one from individual responsibility. ‘Just doing my job, taking this harmless young girl away, putting her on the train to Auschwitz. It’s just a job, but, hey, it’s a noble cause, cleansing our country of these defective creatures. They have no morality, these Jews. They are a malignant virus in our nation. Our leaders have told us so. We know i t to be true.' Edgar Allan Poe I’ve never spent much time reading his stuff. But he was an interesting character. My brother Charles used to love his stuff. When he would get drunk, that was one of the authors he would recite.   [Overly dramatic reciting voice] I think it was his eye. Yes it was this, he had the eye of a vulture. My brother Maxon did an illustrated publication of Edgar Allan Poe. He likes Poe also. For more on Crumbs take on other artists, musicians, politicians, and more, visit the website Crumb on Crumb. Crumb himself appears in a fascinating 1994 documentary about his life. If all you know of Crumb is Fritz the Cat or Mr. Natural, check it out.

Can I get out of taking the SAT or ACT

Can I get out of taking the SAT or ACT SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Some College say scores are not required. Does this mean you have carte blanche to get out of the SAT or ACT? Scores Not Required? When you hear that a school is â€Å"test flexible† or â€Å"doesn’t require scores,† it’s important to do some research before you assume you’re off the testing hook. Although there are technically hundreds of schools that don’t require standardized testing, many of them require some other information instead, or only exempt applicants from test scores if they meet other criteria. For example, at University of Texas at Austin, only students who are in the top 8% of their graduating class may opt not to submit scores. â€Å"Test flexible† sounds good, but all it means is that you can submit AP or IB scores instead of those from the SAT or ACT. These schools also accept SAT Subject Tests, which many consider to be more difficult than the general test. So this isn’t a huge benefit to most studentsthey’ll have to take a standardized test one way or another. You should also consider that most schools that don’t require scores do allow them, and that other applicants will probably be submitting them. For example, at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, test scores aren’t required but 87% of applicants submit them anyway. Do you want to be in the other 13% if you don’t have to? No, you do not. More information is better, and mastering these tests shows admissions officers your strengths. Without scores, they have to assume you’re hiding a weakness. If You Did Poorly on the SAT or ACT Don’t give up! Easily the biggest mistake teenagers make in academics (and a lot of other things) is giving up. Most students who tank standardized tests are, more than anything else, confused by the format of the examand rightly so. Because the SAT and ACT have to be 100% fair and consistent, they’ve ended up with a lot of weird quirks. But for those same reasons, it can be really easy to understand these quirks (that’s what we’re here for!) and use the test to your advantage. Even beyond that, though, the SATeven though it’s trying to test reasoningactually requires a very limited skillset that can be applied in a variety of ways. SAT and ACT prep (such as PrepScholar!) can define those skills for youskills which, by the way, aren’t completely disconnected from real life. Improve your SAT score by preparing, and it’s likely you’ll improve in other academic areas as well. If You’ve Never Taken the SAT or ACT Maybe you hate tests, or you hate getting up early (every regular administration of the SAT ACT starts at 8am), or you don’t think you have the time to study. The bottom line is that, compared to your academic (and occupational) future, none of those things matter. Let’s say you apply to 3 schools, and the most prestigious one, Bowdoin College in Maine, doesn’t require the SAT or ACT. Only 15% of applicants in 2012 chose not to submit scores, and you are one of those. Although your application will still be considered, it is inherently less broad than those of the other 85% of applicants. Let’s say you don’t get in, and you end up at your second choice school instead. After 4 years of coursework there, no matter how well you do, you still won’t have a diploma from Bowdoin. The prestige associated with a more selective school, not to mention the potentially higher quality education, will serve you for the rest of your life. What’s 40 hours of studying compared to that? The Bottom Line No matter how you feel about the SAT or ACT, or even whether you’ll use them in your applications, you should take them and see how you do. If you don’t kill it, do some prep and try againit’s worth the effort, no matter where you apply. Liked this article? Subscribe to updates on the right! We promise never to sell your email.