Aman Brah Rough Draft
Period 4
The poems “Conjoined” by Judith Minty and “A Valediction” by John Donne both discuss the nature of relationships. Both authors have opposing views and use figurative language to prove this. Judith Minty uses symbolism and similes to show how awkward and unnatural marriage is, and John Donne also uses similes and metaphors to show that love is a pure unbreakable bond and unfathomable to the “laity.”
Both authors use similes to show their respective views about relationships. In “A Valediction” John Donne speaks about two lovers and says “Our two souls therefore, which are one, though I must go, endure not yet a breach, but an expansion like gold to airy thinness beat.” When gold is stretched out, it does not break but just becomes thinner and thinner. Donne is saying that the love between those two is similar to gold. Even if they are separated the love will still be there and will not weaken or break. This is because their two souls are one and the love between them is not contingent upon position or distance. John Donne also uses similes to express his view of relationships when he says “If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two.” Donne compares these two lovers to compasses because a compass always points north. Two compasses will be synchronized and both will point north. This might mean that both lovers are on the same page on an emotional level and psychological level making it all the more inconceivable to the “laity.”
On the other hand Judith Minty has an opposite view of marriage in her poem “Conjoined”. She says marriage is “An accident, like the two-headed calf-rooted in one body, fighting to suck at its mother’s teats.” Comparing marriage to a two-headed calf is saying a lot. Minty believes that marriage is an accident, something that shouldn’t have happened and in this case is very unnatural. Not only does she compare marriage to a two-headed calf but the calf is fighting. This shows that she believes that not only is marriage unnatural but the only things the two people do is fight with each other, however the two heads can’t get divorced like a married couple. Minty uses a simile once more when she says marriage is “like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed to live, even make love, together for sixty years.” Here marriage is said to be a freak, a union of two people that are doomed to live. Her pessimism is obvious when she says that they are doomed to live even make love. She must strongly feel that marriage is not good for anyone and those who do get married will be doomed.
Other forms of figurative language are furthermore used to convey opinions about relationships. Metaphors are used by John Donne in his poem “A Valediction.” This can be seen when he says “So let us melt, and make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, twere profanation of our joys to tell the laity of our love.” Literally the two lovers aren’t going to melt but figuratively yes. Just as perhaps ice goes to water they too will melt into one fluid liquid that will essentially become all that is left of their love. Donne feels that the love of these two lovers is so pure that it’s not even worth mentioning to the laity, and that they would not even be able to comprehend what it means to be in such a love as theirs.
Judith Minty successfully uses symbolism to get her point across. For example she says “The onion in my cupboard, a monster; actually two joined under one transparent skin: each half-round, then flat and deformed where it pressed and grew against the other.” She cleverly symbolizes marriage as an onion and says that it is a monster. So according to her marriage is like a monster in which two perfectly normal “onions” grow deformed against each other in one skin. I think that this translates to two normal people becoming an odd couple that only detract from each other under the institution of marriage. Seeing an onion like the one she described would be unnatural just like the way she feels about marriage. She elaborates on the onion symbol by saying “Ah, but men don’t slice inions in the kitchen, seldom see what is invisible.” This might men don’t cry because when someone slices onions they tend to cry. Perhaps she is trying to say that men are less emotionally invested than women are in relationships.
Both authors have different views about the nature of relationships and use figurative language to prove this. Minty feels that love is unnatural and cause pain while Donne feels that some kinds of love is spiritual and inconceivable to the average person.
FINAL DRAFT
The poems “Conjoined” by Judith Minty and “A Valediction” by John Donne both discuss the nature of relationships. Both authors have opposing views and use figurative language to prove this. Judith Minty uses symbolism and similes to show how awkward and unnatural marriage is, and John Donne also uses similes and metaphors to show that love is a pure unbreakable bond and unfathomable to the “laity.”
Both authors use similes to show their respective views about relationships. In “A Valediction” John Donne speaks about two lovers and says “Our two souls therefore, which are one, though I must go, endure not yet a breach, but an expansion like gold to airy thinness beat.” When gold is stretched out, it does not break but just becomes thinner and thinner. Donne is saying that the love between those two is similar to gold. Even if they are separated the love will still be there and will not weaken or break. This is because their two souls are one and the love between them is not contingent upon position or distance. John Donne also uses similes to express his view of relationships when he says “If they be two, they are two so as stiff twin compasses are two.” Donne compares these two lovers to compasses because in this case the two compasses support each other. The fact that a compass is being used is also interesting because compasses are used to draw circles. Circles are archetypal objects that signify eternal love, complete love, and perhaps even the harmony between the two lovers. This might mean that both lovers are on the same page on an emotional level and psychological level making it all the more inconceivable to the “laity.”
On the other hand Judith Minty has an opposite view of marriage in her poem “Conjoined”. She says marriage is “An accident, like the two-headed calf-rooted in one body, fighting to suck at its mother’s teats.” Comparing marriage to a two-headed calf is saying a lot. Minty believes that marriage is an accident, something that shouldn’t have happened and in this case is very unnatural. Not only does she compare marriage to a two-headed calf but the calf is fighting. This shows that she believes that not only is marriage unnatural but the only things the two people do is fight with each other, however the two heads can’t get divorced like a married couple. Minty uses a simile once more when she says marriage is “like those other freaks, Chang and Eng, twins joined at the chest by skin and muscle, doomed to live, even make love, together for sixty years.” Here marriage is said to be a freak, a union of two people that are doomed to live. Her pessimism is obvious when she says that they are doomed to live even make love. She must strongly feel that marriage is not good for anyone and those who do get married will be doomed.
Other forms of figurative language are furthermore used to convey opinions about relationships. Metaphors are used by John Donne in his poem “A Valediction.” This can be seen when he says “So let us melt, and make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, twere profanation of our joys to tell the laity of our love.” Literally the two lovers aren’t going to melt but figuratively yes. Just as perhaps ice goes to water they too will melt into one fluid liquid that will essentially become all that is left of their love. Donne feels that the love of these two lovers is so pure that it’s not even worth mentioning to the laity, and that they would not even be able to comprehend what it means to be in such a love as theirs.
Judith Minty successfully uses symbolism to get her point across. For example she says “The onion in my cupboard, a monster; actually two joined under one transparent skin: each half-round, then flat and deformed where it pressed and grew against the other.” She cleverly symbolizes marriage as an onion and says that it is a monster. So according to her marriage is like a monster in which two perfectly normal “onions” grow deformed against each other in one skin. I think that this translates to two normal people becoming an odd couple that only detract from each other under the institution of marriage. Seeing an onion like the one she described would be unnatural just like the way she feels about marriage. She elaborates on the onion symbol by saying “Ah, but men don’t slice inions in the kitchen, seldom see what is invisible.” This might men don’t cry because when someone slices onions they tend to cry. Perhaps she is trying to say that men are less emotionally invested than women are in relationships.
Both authors have different views about the nature of relationships and use figurative language to prove this. Minty feels that love is unnatural and cause pain while Donne feels that some kinds of love is spiritual and inconceivable to the average person.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Thoughts About Neilson's Essay
I think that Jim Neilson’s essay about The Things They Carried was predominantly aimed at explaining how and why Tim O’ Brien wrote the book the way he did. Neilson quotes from Peter S. Prescott in Newsweek saying "Straightforward wars are built like novels. . . . Messy wars, like the one we fought in Vietnam, lend themselves more readily to fragmented narratives." Perhaps this is why O’ Brien decided to write the story as he does. He could not have gone through and written about his experiences from start to finish, point A to point B because there is too much to write about. Not everything is in order in the novel and just like the war itself, nothing seems to be in order either. Chaos and disorder prevails.
Neilson later goes on to say that “it is within this framework—the belief that the war escapes understanding and representation and even makes us liars—that O'Brien attempts to tell a true war story.” I think this is definitely the best insight that I got from Neilson’s essay because it really helped me understand where O’ Brien was coming from when he wrote the stories he did and acknowledged that true war stories don’t have to be fact to still be true.
Neilson does a good job of criticizing O’ Brien and this can especially be seen when he says “the board of directors of Dow Chemical are more blameworthy than people who switched channels at the mention of politics. O'Brien cannot make such seemingly obvious distinctions because, according to the logic of postmodernism, to do so is to endorse a naive and dangerous positivism. And so he is left with an assortment of equally plausible (and equally false) explanations.” I find this to be especially true. O’ Brien could have done a better job of taking stances on some issues that he presents. But instead he writes with great ambiguity; perhaps because the war itself and the other contentious issues of the time were ambiguous. I understand why he does it, but I would have liked to see more firm stances (I’m even ambiguous about his ambiguity). Amazing what postmodernism does, or does not do. But that’s about all for now.
Neilson later goes on to say that “it is within this framework—the belief that the war escapes understanding and representation and even makes us liars—that O'Brien attempts to tell a true war story.” I think this is definitely the best insight that I got from Neilson’s essay because it really helped me understand where O’ Brien was coming from when he wrote the stories he did and acknowledged that true war stories don’t have to be fact to still be true.
Neilson does a good job of criticizing O’ Brien and this can especially be seen when he says “the board of directors of Dow Chemical are more blameworthy than people who switched channels at the mention of politics. O'Brien cannot make such seemingly obvious distinctions because, according to the logic of postmodernism, to do so is to endorse a naive and dangerous positivism. And so he is left with an assortment of equally plausible (and equally false) explanations.” I find this to be especially true. O’ Brien could have done a better job of taking stances on some issues that he presents. But instead he writes with great ambiguity; perhaps because the war itself and the other contentious issues of the time were ambiguous. I understand why he does it, but I would have liked to see more firm stances (I’m even ambiguous about his ambiguity). Amazing what postmodernism does, or does not do. But that’s about all for now.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The Things They Carried Blog
The Things They Carried is a very interesting book to say the least. So far it has been mostly a compilation of short stories that give us tremendous insight into the mind of Tim O’Brien. He tells us a story that he has never told anyone before, his true feelings about the war, his time in the war and much more. However, through this great range of stories there seems to be a couple predominant themes, the most prevalent being silence.
Silence comes up on more than one occasion throughout the stories. It plays a big part in the story ‘On The Rainy River.’ In this story O’Brien tells us how he stayed at man’s lodge named Elroy Berdahl. He tells us that his time there literally saved his life and that “What I remember more than anything is the man’s willful, almost ferocious silence. In all that time together, all those hours, he never asked the obvious questions: Why was I there? Why alone? Why so preoccupied? If Elroy was curious about any of this, he was careful never to put it into words” (O’ Brien 49). O’ Brien knows that Elroy knows that something is not right with him. That something is bothering him and is acting as a burden upon his shoulders. I think that is why Elroy decided to remain silent. Because he knows that O’ Brien is in a stressful situation right now and has some important decisions to make. So instead of pestering him with questions he probably already knows the answers to, he lets O’ Brien sort these issues out in his brain. This silence, more than anything, helped O’ Brien make the decisions he had to and is what inevitably saved his life.
In ‘How To Tell A True War Story’ silence is talked about again. One of the guys tells O’ Brien about a true story he heard once. It was about 6 guys going on a Listening Patrol in the mountains. They had to lie there in silence for a whole week, not saying a single word the whole time. After a while they started hearing noises, like orchestras, operas, and cocktail parties. So they report enemy movement and warrant an air strike. After the place was torched they started back again towards their camps and “‘Around dawn things finally got quit. Like you never heard quiet before. One of those real thick, real misty days—just clouds and fog, they’re off in this special zone—and the mountains are absolutely dead-flat silent. Like Brigadoon—pure vapor, you know? Everything’s all sucked up inside the fog. Not a single sound, except they still hear it’” (O’ Brien 75). Even after all that destruction of the would be noise and assurance that the noises are gone, they still hear it. The reader starts to wonder then if the noise was really even there. What was it that made those men go mad, was it the silence? Possibly. Later O’ Brien asks the man telling the story “’ what’s the moral?” “Forget it.” “No, go ahead.” For a long while he was quiet, looking away, and the silence kept stretching out until it was almost embarrassing. Then he shrugged and gave me a stare that lasted all day. “Hear that quiet, man?” he said. “That quiet—just listen. There’s your moral.”” (O’ Brien 77). So I guess there was no moral to that story, it was just a story for story’s sake.
There was also a theme of silence in the story where Rat Kiley tortures the baby buffalo. The buffalo was silent the whole time and did not make a peep once.
So silence plays more than one role throughout these stories and so far it is the most recurring theme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N8_u1FLu30&feature=channel
Not really related to the novel just thought it was funny.
Silence comes up on more than one occasion throughout the stories. It plays a big part in the story ‘On The Rainy River.’ In this story O’Brien tells us how he stayed at man’s lodge named Elroy Berdahl. He tells us that his time there literally saved his life and that “What I remember more than anything is the man’s willful, almost ferocious silence. In all that time together, all those hours, he never asked the obvious questions: Why was I there? Why alone? Why so preoccupied? If Elroy was curious about any of this, he was careful never to put it into words” (O’ Brien 49). O’ Brien knows that Elroy knows that something is not right with him. That something is bothering him and is acting as a burden upon his shoulders. I think that is why Elroy decided to remain silent. Because he knows that O’ Brien is in a stressful situation right now and has some important decisions to make. So instead of pestering him with questions he probably already knows the answers to, he lets O’ Brien sort these issues out in his brain. This silence, more than anything, helped O’ Brien make the decisions he had to and is what inevitably saved his life.
In ‘How To Tell A True War Story’ silence is talked about again. One of the guys tells O’ Brien about a true story he heard once. It was about 6 guys going on a Listening Patrol in the mountains. They had to lie there in silence for a whole week, not saying a single word the whole time. After a while they started hearing noises, like orchestras, operas, and cocktail parties. So they report enemy movement and warrant an air strike. After the place was torched they started back again towards their camps and “‘Around dawn things finally got quit. Like you never heard quiet before. One of those real thick, real misty days—just clouds and fog, they’re off in this special zone—and the mountains are absolutely dead-flat silent. Like Brigadoon—pure vapor, you know? Everything’s all sucked up inside the fog. Not a single sound, except they still hear it’” (O’ Brien 75). Even after all that destruction of the would be noise and assurance that the noises are gone, they still hear it. The reader starts to wonder then if the noise was really even there. What was it that made those men go mad, was it the silence? Possibly. Later O’ Brien asks the man telling the story “’ what’s the moral?” “Forget it.” “No, go ahead.” For a long while he was quiet, looking away, and the silence kept stretching out until it was almost embarrassing. Then he shrugged and gave me a stare that lasted all day. “Hear that quiet, man?” he said. “That quiet—just listen. There’s your moral.”” (O’ Brien 77). So I guess there was no moral to that story, it was just a story for story’s sake.
There was also a theme of silence in the story where Rat Kiley tortures the baby buffalo. The buffalo was silent the whole time and did not make a peep once.
So silence plays more than one role throughout these stories and so far it is the most recurring theme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N8_u1FLu30&feature=channel
Not really related to the novel just thought it was funny.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Msinredomtsop si tahw?
At last the question will be answered (or attempted at least), what is postmodernism? What the heck is this thing? Well one aspect of it, is that it’s a bunch of stories or meta-narratives that try to explain why certain things are the way they are. It gets away from the modernist notion that science will be able to solve everything, or that science will find the meaning of life. Postmodernism embraces the fact that there is no universal truth; no truth that EVERYONE can agree upon. This is true. There is no such thing as one belief that every single person can latch onto and make that their life’s purpose (well not yet at least… I’ll come up with it one day but as for now, I’m still workin on it. ) Postmodernism also really emphasizes that different cultures have different views about things and that a person is not limited to one belief system or way of life. You could be Jewish, that embraces Buddhism’s teachings, while believing in the Muslim version of heaven (72 virgins) and that makes you, you. Postmodernism stresses individuality not conformity or universality. “Postmodern people are inclined to see the world as a kind of carnival of cultures”, where one belief ends, the other begins in this sort of overlapping mosaic. Diversity is beautiful and being different is not a bad thing; once everyone begins to see things in that light, we will all be in a better place. It also stresses objectivity, but as we all have come to realize, this is a very difficult task. Almost everything that is done, ever, will be subjective. We should also consider the Other point of view(s). We should not be so narrow-minded and set in stone in our beliefs as to where we don’t even reflect on Other thoughts. Well that’s my (subjective) view of postmodernism, it might be off a bit, but I can’t find the right words to finish this sentence.
Oh well, goodbye Postmodernism.
Oh well, goodbye Postmodernism.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Potential Maus Thesis Ideas
Okay so this week we are supposed to think about possible thesis topics for the Maus essay. This is definitely one of the more interesting books that I have read in my day but writing an essay for it might be a little harder than I originally thought it would be. I think that in my essay I will most likely be talking about point of view, what it does for the story, how it does it, and why it does it. I will go with point of view mainly because I was interested in how the story switches from Vladek telling his story about Auschwitz to Artie telling about Vladek’s personal life as well as parts of his own. I haven’t ironed out the details yet but that is what the last two days of Christmas break will be for.
I will most definitely use some of the sources that we have gotten in class. I really found that McCloud one to be very interesting and think that it will help prove the point I will be arguing. I don’t know how but I might try to incorporate common misconceptions about graphic novels and how they can tell just as good stories as all other novels if not better than some. I also might use the other article by Linda Hutcheon we got in class. That also had some good insight into this book. I don’t know exactly if I will be using postmodernism, it just seems a little irrelevant to what I will potentially be trying to prove. But if I have a good idea/epiphany I will surely incorporate it into my essay.
Although I haven’t done so yet I most likely will go and look at additional outside sources and see if they can help me in better understanding the seemingly simple yet multi-layered book. So that’s about all for right now.
I will most definitely use some of the sources that we have gotten in class. I really found that McCloud one to be very interesting and think that it will help prove the point I will be arguing. I don’t know how but I might try to incorporate common misconceptions about graphic novels and how they can tell just as good stories as all other novels if not better than some. I also might use the other article by Linda Hutcheon we got in class. That also had some good insight into this book. I don’t know exactly if I will be using postmodernism, it just seems a little irrelevant to what I will potentially be trying to prove. But if I have a good idea/epiphany I will surely incorporate it into my essay.
Although I haven’t done so yet I most likely will go and look at additional outside sources and see if they can help me in better understanding the seemingly simple yet multi-layered book. So that’s about all for right now.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Google is making us more dumberest?
I don’t want to catch any of you guys off guard so I’ll just let you know ahead of time, this is gonna be a long one so please bear with me.
Well I must admit there were a lot of interesting and true things stated in this article. I couldn’t exactly find where in the article, but it said something along the lines of the internet giving us a shorter attention span. I unfortunately have to agree with this. In the course of reading the article I drove to Fresno AM Track, watched TV, ate dinner, took a nap, made some online purchases, and watched half a dozen YouTube videos.
I constantly found myself wanting to do something anything else, than read the article then and there. But for the last half of the article I forced myself to sit there and read the whole thing through, which I successfully accomplished I might add. I felt a little like Carr when he said “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” What does that say about people using the internet more frequently? I think it says that we no longer legitimately try to sit there and read something, a book for example, the whole way through and have the same deep thoughts and reflections that we used to have. The thoughts in solitude that added to the glory of books and all that was in them. We now just surf the net looking for the most entertaining thing to read/do and then move on to the next topic rapidly. We allow ourselves to be distracted and look for that thing that captures our attention most and act upon that.
For example I, while reading the article, obviously got distracted and went on random searches. I wanted to search most visited websites on Google but before I could start the word “visited” it showed an alternate list of things I might be “interested in.” And I’ll be damned, I was. I saw most expensive cars and got curious and clicked that and searched that for a little bit then went on over to YouTube and see some of these cars in video. While on YouTube I was distracted with another thought and this time it was Parkour (also known as free running). While I watched some of those videos I realized what was happening to me and got frightened. I got distracted by Parkour while I was checking out nice cars when I was supposed to be checking out most visited websites while I was supposed to be reading the article. I got distracted while being distracted while being distracted essentially. And I wondered what am I doing? Why can’t I just do what I initially set out to do?
The answer to this was because of the availability of the sources on the internet. Google allowed me to search whatever sporadically came to my mind and YouTube let me actually see that stuff. Maybe that’s why it sometimes takes me so long to get work done on the computer. I feel like my mind is being hijacked by the internet. Sounds kinda weird but I really think that’s what happened.
Google is essentially trying to do this as Sergey Brin and Larry Page “speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains.” As Page said in a speech of his “‘The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter’”. Just as with the invention of the clock “in deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock”, is Google that new invention that is slowly going to creep up unbeknownst to us and try to control the very way we think and function? In his interview with Newsweek Brin said “‘Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.’”
How would we be better off with an artificial brain? How? Granted we would know all the facts to know about life but that would be it: facts. What about the very things that makes us human; thoughts and opinions? What about those things? Would they just disappear? I don’t know my brain was just rattled by that comment made by one of the FOUNDERS of Google and I’m still reeling a bit. But that’s about all I have to got say right now and follow the link below if you wanna check out one of the videos I “discovered.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB4uzs_C8dU&feature=related
Oh and sorry for not relating any of this to Cat’s Cradle, I’m sure there are lots of connections between the two though.
Well I must admit there were a lot of interesting and true things stated in this article. I couldn’t exactly find where in the article, but it said something along the lines of the internet giving us a shorter attention span. I unfortunately have to agree with this. In the course of reading the article I drove to Fresno AM Track, watched TV, ate dinner, took a nap, made some online purchases, and watched half a dozen YouTube videos.
I constantly found myself wanting to do something anything else, than read the article then and there. But for the last half of the article I forced myself to sit there and read the whole thing through, which I successfully accomplished I might add. I felt a little like Carr when he said “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” What does that say about people using the internet more frequently? I think it says that we no longer legitimately try to sit there and read something, a book for example, the whole way through and have the same deep thoughts and reflections that we used to have. The thoughts in solitude that added to the glory of books and all that was in them. We now just surf the net looking for the most entertaining thing to read/do and then move on to the next topic rapidly. We allow ourselves to be distracted and look for that thing that captures our attention most and act upon that.
For example I, while reading the article, obviously got distracted and went on random searches. I wanted to search most visited websites on Google but before I could start the word “visited” it showed an alternate list of things I might be “interested in.” And I’ll be damned, I was. I saw most expensive cars and got curious and clicked that and searched that for a little bit then went on over to YouTube and see some of these cars in video. While on YouTube I was distracted with another thought and this time it was Parkour (also known as free running). While I watched some of those videos I realized what was happening to me and got frightened. I got distracted by Parkour while I was checking out nice cars when I was supposed to be checking out most visited websites while I was supposed to be reading the article. I got distracted while being distracted while being distracted essentially. And I wondered what am I doing? Why can’t I just do what I initially set out to do?
The answer to this was because of the availability of the sources on the internet. Google allowed me to search whatever sporadically came to my mind and YouTube let me actually see that stuff. Maybe that’s why it sometimes takes me so long to get work done on the computer. I feel like my mind is being hijacked by the internet. Sounds kinda weird but I really think that’s what happened.
Google is essentially trying to do this as Sergey Brin and Larry Page “speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains.” As Page said in a speech of his “‘The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter’”. Just as with the invention of the clock “in deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock”, is Google that new invention that is slowly going to creep up unbeknownst to us and try to control the very way we think and function? In his interview with Newsweek Brin said “‘Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.’”
How would we be better off with an artificial brain? How? Granted we would know all the facts to know about life but that would be it: facts. What about the very things that makes us human; thoughts and opinions? What about those things? Would they just disappear? I don’t know my brain was just rattled by that comment made by one of the FOUNDERS of Google and I’m still reeling a bit. But that’s about all I have to got say right now and follow the link below if you wanna check out one of the videos I “discovered.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB4uzs_C8dU&feature=related
Oh and sorry for not relating any of this to Cat’s Cradle, I’m sure there are lots of connections between the two though.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
R.I.P.: Postmodernism—you served us well.
Could it be true? Could postmodernism really be dead, gone, buried, and irrelevant? According to Dr. Alan Kirby, it has been. “Postmodernism—whatever it is—is an attempt to make sense of what is going on now—and we can see the present clearly only in retrospect” (Powell 17). Retrospect by definition is the “contemplation of the past; a survey of past time, events, etc” (Dictionary.com).
That seems a bit ironic doesn’t it? That what was happening 40 or 50 years ago would be able to tell us what is happening today. How could people back then possibly have imagined the things we do today? If we had a chat with someone from the past I highly doubt that they could have predicted us having cell phones with internet capabilities so that we can update our facebook status. That just seems absurd to me. Looking at the past to see what is going on today would be like trying to drive on the freeway with your head turned around and looking at the cars behind you. The reason why we don’t do that is because we’ll crash!
Maybe that’s why Dr. Alan Kirby thinks that postmodernism is dead and gone. Because in an ever-evolving world we can’t let the past hinder or dictate what we want to do or where we want to go.
Dr. Alan Kirby says that “In postmodernism, one read, watched, listened, as before. In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads” (The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond). In postmodernism, things happened to us; we watched and listened. In pseudo-modernism we are the ones doing the doing; downloading, clicking, phoning, etc. We no longer live vicariously through the world around us, the world lives vicariously through us. That seems like a narcissistic and egotistic thing to say, but think about it. All those call in shows where we cast our votes wouldn’t have a fraction of the success they have if no one called in. Shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation and movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity have the success they do not only because they are entertaining, but because they actively engage the audience. They make us feel as if we are right there crapping our pants or right there listening to one of Michael Scott’s lectures. The line between spectator and participator seemingly disappear.
When surfing the web or watching TV, we leave an inerasable footprint of the things we’ve clicked the channels we’ve visited. To Dr. Kirby “This is a far more intense engagement with the cultural process than anything literature can offer, and gives the undeniable sense (or illusion) of the individual controlling, managing, running, making up his/her involvement with the cultural product.” And to some extent I must agree with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdpdK8lbUQ
That seems a bit ironic doesn’t it? That what was happening 40 or 50 years ago would be able to tell us what is happening today. How could people back then possibly have imagined the things we do today? If we had a chat with someone from the past I highly doubt that they could have predicted us having cell phones with internet capabilities so that we can update our facebook status. That just seems absurd to me. Looking at the past to see what is going on today would be like trying to drive on the freeway with your head turned around and looking at the cars behind you. The reason why we don’t do that is because we’ll crash!
Maybe that’s why Dr. Alan Kirby thinks that postmodernism is dead and gone. Because in an ever-evolving world we can’t let the past hinder or dictate what we want to do or where we want to go.
Dr. Alan Kirby says that “In postmodernism, one read, watched, listened, as before. In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves, downloads” (The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond). In postmodernism, things happened to us; we watched and listened. In pseudo-modernism we are the ones doing the doing; downloading, clicking, phoning, etc. We no longer live vicariously through the world around us, the world lives vicariously through us. That seems like a narcissistic and egotistic thing to say, but think about it. All those call in shows where we cast our votes wouldn’t have a fraction of the success they have if no one called in. Shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation and movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity have the success they do not only because they are entertaining, but because they actively engage the audience. They make us feel as if we are right there crapping our pants or right there listening to one of Michael Scott’s lectures. The line between spectator and participator seemingly disappear.
When surfing the web or watching TV, we leave an inerasable footprint of the things we’ve clicked the channels we’ve visited. To Dr. Kirby “This is a far more intense engagement with the cultural process than anything literature can offer, and gives the undeniable sense (or illusion) of the individual controlling, managing, running, making up his/her involvement with the cultural product.” And to some extent I must agree with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdpdK8lbUQ
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