Week 11 Storytelling: BBF: Best Brother Forever

To whom it may concern:

Hi, I'm Jordan, and I'm writing this to tell you about my awesome and talented brother Jackson. We're twins, so I've literally known this guy for longer than I'll ever know anyone else, which is a real treat because I don't know of a single person who I think is better than Jackson. He and I were both dancers, but a few years ago I gave that up to start choreographing other dancers in small productions around New York City. I started to gain some fame fairly quickly, but after I had three shows that were reviewed really well, I had one that kind of tanked. Jackson was always the better choreographer, but he really wanted to make it as a dancer, so I just asked him for a few pointers on how to return to the glowing reviews I had gotten in the past. Jackson totally went above and beyond for me and he choreographed almost an entire show for me!

As much as I appreciated my brother helping me out so much, I told him there was no way I could just take his work like that. I could tell this was much better than any work I had ever done, and I didn't want to take away attention from Jackson when I knew he deserved to be praised for his tremendous work. We argued back and forth for a while, and ultimately I agreed to put my name on the choreography on one condition, that Jackson danced the main part. Since I was just starting out, we were on a smaller stage than Jackson was used to, so he was a little hesitant. But I knew that if he danced in this show that he had created, we wouldn't be on a small stage for long.

Finally, the big premiere night came and it was a roaring success! Everyone loved the choreography just as much as I suspected, and Jackson had never danced better in his life. After the premiere, the show quickly moved to a larger stage. On the first night in the new theater, I went on stage and announced that the choreography was actually entirely done by Jackson. This really made the critics wild, and Jackson finally got all the fame and recognition he had deserved. And since we tend to do our best work when we're together, I was back on the up and up again as well.


All this to say that I think my brother is a great dancer and man who truly deserves to be on a Wheaties box. I've included in this letter a mock-up of what I think a really great box would look like.

Thank you in advance for your consideration,

Jordan

 

Author's note: In the original King Arthur story, Arthur gets a sword out of a rock because he promised his brother he would not return without a sword. However, Arthur's father realizes that this sword actually signifies that Arthur is the rightful king because he is the only one in the whole kingdom who can release the sword from the rock. Even though Arthur immediately gave the sword to his brother and his brother initially (wrongly) thought that he was the king, his brother gladly gave the sword back to Arthur when his father told him Arthur was the one who was the king. I thought it was really cool that Arthur's brother wasn't jealous that Arthur was the king. He was genuinely happy for him. Most stories with brothers holding some sort of power involve a jealous brother who ends up killing the other (Claudius and Hamlet, Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel, etc). I liked the supportive attitude that Arthur and his brother had, so I decided to make that the theme of my story. I have a brother, and although the sibling rivalry can be very real, we try to focus on building each other up and supporting each other whenever we can.

Bibliography: King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1902).

Image Information: first picture: Les Twins; second picture I created using two images: Wheaties Box, Les Twins in Air

Week 11 Extra Reading Diary: Canterbury Tales

For an extra reading from the British unit, I chose to read the Canterbury Tales unit from the The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). Since I had already read the King Arthur stories, I loved that the first story in this unit cited a knight of the round table. It's not surprising since King Arthur is very pervasive and both stories are part of the British unit, but it was still a lot of fun. It was like a crossover episode on tv, which is always a ton of fun. Of the three units I read from the British unit (King Arthur, Robin Hood, and this one) I definitely like the Canterbury Tales the best so far. It could be just because these are told in the most understandable language and are somewhat more modern, but these stories really held my interest and made me want to continue reading even when I had other stuff I could have been doing. I definitely liked the Unknown Bride the best from the first half of the unit because it reminded me of an episode of the BBC show Sherlock for some reason. Maybe it was the title or the way the story was told, but I was just entranced from the first sentence to read the whole story and find out what happens to the knight. I loved that the old wife told the grumpy knight that just because she was poor and old didn't mean she wasn't kind. Although I don't know how nice it is to force a man to marry you in return for saving his life. I feel like she should have just automatically saved his life and wanted nothing in return if she was actually a good person.

King Midas and his ears

Week 11 Reading Diary: King Arthur Continued

This week I'm reading King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang. This focus for the second half of the reading was much less on Arthur and much more on Lancelot. I like Galahad and Arthur much better for Lancelot because Lancelot doesn't have the best character in the world. I would not exactly describe him as galant, whereas Arthur and Galahad are really nice and kind and seem to be even better knights for that reason. I didn't really understand the whole Holy Graal thing until I wikipedia searched it. Between that and the Perilous Siege, there's a lot of confusing names of things in these King Arthur stories. Gawaine also seems like a less good knight, but that could be just because I don't like his name as much. Galahad is a really great name. I really liked that Sir Bors had to wear a different sort of garment until he fulfilled his quest. Little quirky stuff like that can really take a story from average to excellent just because I would have never thought of something so different. Everyone should have to wear a scarlet coat until they accomplish something awesome. The end of Arthur was sad, but he more interesting character when he was a young king who had to prove himself anyways. I was more sad when Galahad died because he still seemed like the best knight in the land, so that seemed like a pretty great loss.

Lancelot

Week 11 Reading Diary: King Arthur

This week I'm reading King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang. I've really enjoyed reading this, and I can't wait to get to the second half of the reading. Before reading this, I knew many of the stories of King Arthur, but I've gotten a lot of general clarification from reading the actual stories! I especially like trying to figure out and remember who is related to who. Arthur sure seems to have a lot of relatives. When I first start reading something new it's usually hard for me to keep the characters' names and descriptions straight, especially if they have alternate names that they will occasionally go by. This particular difficulty has made reading King Arthur stories especially challenging, but by reading the wikipedia pages and going through each story slowly, I think I'm really starting to get it. Many of the British unit stories sounded really interesting to me, so I may decide to do an extra reading unit this week or next week so that I can read all the stories that appeal to me! My favorite characters in these King Arthur stories so far is definitely Arthur himself. When he started crying because the Knights of the Round Table were going to go off and probably all die it was really touching. I'll have to try and add some crying kings to this week's storytelling post. I also like the villains in these stories because they have almost no motivation and they just seem grumpy and vindictive for no reason, which definitely makes their random acts of evil fun to keep up with!

The Holy Grail Appears at the Round Table