Thursday, January 15, 2009

I guess I need to read more...

I read this caucasia book. I guess I should read more often because many of you liked this book, which is fine, but it feel like I'm missing out on something. The book wasn't bad but when I recall on what has happend throught the story I can't really think of anything I liked about this book. Sure, at least it was a normal story, and Birdie meating up with cole was as heart warming as ever but that dosn't make this a good story. Maybe I'm just not considering the themes and how they relate to my own life, but how do the themes relate to the book. I relieze the question sounds stupid but they mentioned hair fifty times in that book, so what? They mentioned music a lot, ok. They said the word invisible a lot, probably because birdie... felt... invisible... being two different races... .... I really have no idea. I guess this all goes back to me complaining about close reading, but I don't know if I should of been complaining because now that I think about it, the short stories were better than this book, why? Because Cacausia is just a very long short story. Nothing really happens and all it has is a few intersting scenes and a subtle message, it has both of the short story charactoristics. Again, I guess I should read more, because unlike some people who can appreciate these things, I really can't. 

Killing me softly 3 reactions

I can't say that I was completely zoned in for that movie but I thought it would be something to blog about. It was kind of good I guess, well maybe, usually documentaries are more shocking then that; however, usually power-point induced podeum lectures are less shocking then that. I thought the movie was interesting but truthfully I thought that the discussion about the movie durring class was more interesting. I don't recall who said it but someone mentioned the lady on screen maybe implyed that advertising conglomerates have a secret agenda to belittle women. As if some C.E.O. of some advertising agency was tired of just making loads of cash and decided that he should put a dent in the social construction of gender for fun, and thinking about that was much more interesting than the movie. Say whatever you want about corperate consperices they're at least more interesting then women scantaly clothed in mainstream magazines. The documentary wasn't bad though, actually it was pretty informative sort of, there was just one thing that I'd like to mention. If you see 'an inconvient truth' good chances are you'll stop pouring toxic sewage on your driveways, if you see this movie your reaction will probably be "hmm, I never thought about this topic for an hour and a half before" and then you'll leave. The thing is, I don't think that it's a big problem, but never the less its a problem we can't really do anything about.  I mean honestly what could you do about this? Don't even think about it because the answer is nothing probably. I'm not going to think about it either, I'm just going to blog about it.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

It's an ok book

It took me a while but I caught up with the reading. Caucasia, I must say, isn't half bad but I'm not a real big fan of it. Sure it deals with the complexity of the emotions of someone who's two races but in my opinon thats only intresting for about 20 pages. It seems like the book didn't really take any real action untill birdie fled to boston, well she's still in boston and there are only 60 pages left. Why couldn't the mom have done something that would of had the FBI on their trail 24/7, at least that'd be intresting. I guess I do like in retrospect how this story is a bit wild but it seems like it could all actually happen in real life, But does that make it a good read? for most people I would assume that in fact it does make it a good read but this book is missing something for me. Explosions maybe? no... that'd be rediculous. It dosn't really matter what it is I just want some sort of action, I know that it sounds idiotic but for me, action is neccessary (most of the time) for a good story. I can't think of a good movie I like that dosn't have action. Or at least rising action, or a story arch in general. I'm just rambling at this point, I do actually like this book, it is written beautifully and there are many interesting scenes but I just really want something to explode. It's a guy thing.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Brady Bunch Theme Song

Here's the story of a lovely lady Who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, The youngest one in curls.



Here's the story, of a man named Brady, Who was busy with three boys of his own, They were four men, living all together, Yet they were all alone.



Till the one day when the lady met this fellow And they knew it was much more than a hunch, That this group would somehow form a family. That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch.



The Brady Bunch, That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Glass Half Full

If I woke one day in my bed and I was invisible, of course I'd have fun with, like that guy Claude from first season Heroes who steals things and bumps into people on purpose. If I woke up and was a cockroach however, it would probably be a little harder to have fun it with but it's probably a possiblity. For starters I would go to a mental institution and walk down the hall and then leave, and everyone would be like, "no you have to believe me, there was definetly a giant cockroach here!" Or maybe I'd go to a PETA convention and see whether they would attack me or welcome me a guest speaker. Or maybe I pay a friend of mine to threaten a fast food place that if he dosn't get free food a giant Cockroach will come and eat them. Or maybe I'd stand very still on a statue and then move slowly every couple hours so that I only catch one person's attention. The only problem there would be that everywhere you'd go people try to attack you and kill you, It'd play out like the movie cloverfield except when the police come I'd be pretty much screwed, but It's better that living under a couch... maybe.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

This is a blog, cat equals yes

During the political campaigns of both John McCain and Barrack Obama, I was always curious about something. If the candidates were to use extremely simple language, and explain every word that might be challenging to someone who is uneducated the American people would probably be insulted and turn their back on that candidates; however, if they were to use fancy words and sayings that we didn't really understand we wouldn't like that guy as our president.

So is there some sort of middle ground to talk to the American people? Maybe there is but as far as I can remember there wasn't really any explaining going on, both candidates just liked saying "vote for me cause I'm the best, oh and don't listen to that other guy, he sells drugs to children" a lot. In fact I remember a debate between Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama where Hillary accused Barrack of not having a health care plan that would cover every American and Barrack said that the plan would cover all the people who needed it, or something like that. Anyway I really would have liked it if we they could have talked about the exact specifications of both their plans, the positive and negative outcomes, but in simple language that someone like me could comprehend. Although I guess its silly to request that they take that much time out of the debate to do that. They're politicians, they have more important things to do. So now to connect this to College literature.

I am a simpleton, and simpletons, such as myself, do not care for things we do not understand, and like that old mobster from the 'batman begins' movie once said, "you always fear what you don't understand" and he's right. I am literally afraid of these stories. I have rubber gloves in my backpack so I don't have to make physical contact with the paper. I have a pair of pliers so that the papers don't make physical contact with my gloves. Of course I'm joking, but still I hope that next week we get something sort with words all in English, and in my vocabulary. It's fun to dream.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Close read this title (you might miss something)

I understand the concept of close reading. It means you read it more carefully to get more prespective on the story, but when it comes to a story like 'every little hurricane' I wonder if it is worth it. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with close reading, but when I read the 'every little hurricane' story the first time, I was absolutly confused about everything I had read. So when I read it over it made a little more sense but is that good storytelling? If the author was expecting his audience to be able to understand it the first time than I guess it'd be alright, but I hope he didn't assume that he was being clever by trying to make the reader figure it out. That's like if I were telling a joke and nobody laughed, and if I were to explain the joke, you might think it was clever but I still didn't tell the joke correctly because nobody laughed. I don't see anything wrong with picking up new information on the second read, I'm just saying that when I finished reading the story for the first time I didn't know what the author was trying to tell me, or what the author wanted me to feel, and I can blame that mostly on the fact that I'm not a good reader, but still I feel as though the author could have done something to make me want to read it over again. I would like to cite a paragraph from the reading:
"During all these tiny storms, Victor's mother would rise with her medicine and magic. She would pull air down from empty cupboards and make fry bread. She would shake thick blankets free from old bandanas. She would comb Victors braids into dreams."
I assume that the child who lives in poverty is pretending that his life is nicer than it actually is by saying that old bandanas were thick blankets to him and so on and so forth; however, if I remember correctly, when I read this the first time, my brain exploded. When I went back and tried to figure out what it was saying, I did eventually and that was it.
I'm not suggesting that close reading is bad or anything, I'm just saying that if you close read something than it's not going to change you're opinon of the story, and I think it would be bizzare if he intended it to be some sort of mind puzzle. Of course it would be good for me to practice this close reading stuff to keep my brain firmly in one piece in the future.