Ego Check

Well, it turns out Boly didn't exactly like the rough draft of my satire of President Bush's Inaugural (or at least that was the sense I got after he referred to it as a "problem," and asked me if anyone who had read it had laughed). Realistically speaking, he's completely right, although I and a few other people actually DID find it to be at least mildly humorous. And I agree that it does indeed lack a true, singular "target" of satire (instead it has about seven that are loosely cobbled together). With that said, I'm in a bit of a bind. I've concluded that a proper and technically "good" satire of the Inaugural speech is either impossible or far beyond my abilities. This is mainly because it would be nearly inconceivable to satirize only one single target in such a broad speech. The only real chance of doing so would be to attack Bush's neologisms, personality, or speaking style, none of which really makes for a substantial piece. Trying to satirize policy at the same time as Bush quickly gets complicated and confusing. Compounding these problems is the vague language used in the actual speech itself, which doesn't explicitly reference any direct policy anyway. So what does that leave me with? Well, it left me with absolutely nothing. Not wanting to deviate too drastically from the rough draft that I already turned in, I finally came up with the idea that I should do a satirical essay on the Bush energy policy. So far it's pretty bad, although a perhaps a little more clear than the last one. I think I'm just going to have to come to grips with the fact that I'm not funny at all, in addition to being absolutely terrible at literary analysis. But at least you can fake your way through the literary analysis in high school and still get an A or A- on the papers; I'm not so sure about the humor. Considering that the two criteria are 1) ability to discern a clear target of satire, 2) ability to make the reader laugh, I quiver to think what this piece is going to receive, even under Boly's normally benevolent grading scale.