Blog #1 - David Sedaris

“When You Are Engulfed In Flames”, written by David Sedaris is a hilarious novel about all the misadventures throughout his life. All these misadventures beginning from David’s earlier years to his days in Normandy and New York.

The first two chapters, “It’s Catching” and “Keeping Up” are introductions to family and friends of David Sedaris. The novel begins with two interesting characters, Lisa and Patsy. Both of them are germaphobes, people that are obsessed with being clean and avoid any encounters with bacteria. They both share stories relating to cleanliness and what you should do in certain situations. David, being the narrator, wonders what they would do? Lisa says that in theatres, before she sits down in the chair she will place her coat on the back of a chair to avoid the bacteria from others getting on her. As well, Patsy expands on the subject and says that whenever she goes to grocery stores, she never puts her hands on the pushcarts. We are also introduced to David’s mother, whom he calls Maw Hamwrick. His mother is a warm, caring and a hard-working person around her house. All of these friends and family had been invited to David and his partner Hugh’s house for Christmas dinner in Paris. The next chapter, “Keeping Up”, is a chapter where Hugh, David’s lover, is described in more detail. The chapter is about David and Hugh travelling about, where David would always end up losing Hugh in the crowds. David would describe how Hugh would somehow blend in, and always know his way around foreign cities due to all the travel guides he reads. David described finding Hugh, as the book “Where’s Waldo”. Another portion of the chapter is David’s obsession with finding out what a dingo looked like, by going to the zoo in Australia. When going through the lengthy zoo, David and Hugh finally see the dingoes. David having a great imagination thought that a dingo would be this spectacular creature, when all it really was an animal that looked like a dog.

“I don’t know how, but he does. There’s a store in London that sells travel guides alongside novels that take place in this or that given country. The idea is that you’ll read the guide for facts and read the novel for atmosphere – a nice thought, but the only book I’ll ever need is Where’s Waldo? All my energy goes into keeping track of Hugh, and as a result I don’t get to enjoy anything.” This passage just puts a smile on your face, and helps you imagine, being lost in huge crowd of people and all you are trying to do is find this one person. It also brings back memories of when I was younger and go to the library with my friends and take out the “Where’s Waldo” book and time between each other who was the fastest to find Waldo.

The structure of the novel, in which the author follows, is fairly good. There is a nice transition between each of the chapters, as well you can almost just start the novel from any chapter and it would make sense. The choice of words is also very simple and makes it an easy and understand read. Finally, the imagery in which the author provides is a nice to read, because he describes all his travels in a very nice manner.

"The Dog, The Family, A Household Tale" - August Kleinzahler

There is a uniqueness to August Kleinzahler’s writing. Almost everything that he writes is humorous in some form or another. As well in this passage, the two prominent figures in his early life were; his dog and Nanny Far. Usually, as a child your memories would surround your Mom and Dad for example; this was not the case for August. His dog, in which he always relates uniquely to having the characteristics of a human, was his best friend. Nanny Far was obviously a woman that really influenced him in being the person he is today. Especially, changed his taste in women; “I would live with a young Czech woman, Canadian Czech, and suck my thumb til it was raw…” August as mentioned in the text, said that he was a “mistake”, he was conceived by accident. This really does clear up, why August was an outsider in his family, both his parents do not connect with him as much as most parents should. This was probably another reason for his unique writing, he had a different perspective than other kids. His brother, the usual risk taker or brave one that is always up to trouble. Dad was not a key character in his life, he was always away at work. His Mother was someone that had values and seemed to be very "proper" and loved the family dog, just as much as August did. Finally, was his sister, a mysterious character in his life that never was really close to the family as she lived in the attic and listened to her loud thumping music.

“You see, if Mother had only listened to her own mother and averted her eyes from the dog during the term of pregnancy. It was said, this unhappy result might have been avoided.” This quote is a great example of how humorous the author is in describing how everyone thought that he looked like the dog because his mother was looking at the dog when giving birth to August. It's just a quotation that makes you laugh and wonder where does he come up with this stuff? “He seldom attacked humans, only dogs, male dogs. Female dogs brought out his romantic side.” This quotation was describing his dog, in a very humorous manner and how he relates to other dogs around him. Again, bringing up the fact of how the author believed that the dog acted like a human. This is a perfect example of human nature, especially in males, acting tough in front of other males and then bringing out a softer romantic side around females.

"The Glass Castle" Writing Assignment

Walls’ establishes two very diverse tones, by telling two different stories of her parents. One is being a happier time and her not realizing the financial troubles of her family, creating a tone of innocence. As she grew up, she then realizes these financial problems and the tone becomes judgmental. The narrator gets you on side, by trying to help her parents in the best way she knows how. In my opinion, when the narrator was much younger it is easier for the reader to be on her side, because it describes the parents as people who truly cared about family values. The narrator does use tone and words to idealize her parents when she was younger. However, you see her true personality as she grows older and is embarrassed by her parents, and how they live on the streets.

The author is masterful in her diction, as illustrated by the following examples; “I’d tried to make a home for myself here, tried to turn the apartment into the sort of place where the person I wanted to be would live. But I could never enjoy the room without worrying about Mom and Dad huddled on the sidewalk grate somewhere.” This passage intrigues the reader, as it creates an image of poverty and wealth. There is an interesting transition, between her description of her wealth and her parents’ lives on the street creating a vivid contrast of two different lifestyles. Curiosity is aroused by this passage. “I looked up to the stars and tried to figure out which was the best one. You could see hundreds, maybe thousands or even millions, twinkling in the clear desert sky. The longer you looked and the more your eyes adjusted to the dark, the more stars you’d see, layer after layer of them gradually becoming visible.” This passage can really make you imagine that you had been there looking up at all the beautiful stars and realized that the simplest things in life can astonish you.

Obama's Eulogy by Michael Dawson

1) Describe how visual media enhances the eulogy. Provide specific examples.

Ted Kennedy, not just a Senator to the United States, and was a hero to his country. A caring individual, whom always went out of his way to help people, by calling all the mourning families from 9/11, treated everyone equally from his co-workers to his family. He is a hero who will always be missed by the American people. During Obama’s eulogy, there were pictures of this amazing man, which really helped provide people with a good look of how personable, and caring he was. He was always smiling; it portrayed him well as Obama was describing his outstanding life and what he gave to so many people. He gave the gift of happiness, by either caring or occasionally using humor as a way to put a smile on a person’s face. The best caption that was shown in the eulogy was the photo with his two brothers. They all had the exact same expressions on their faces, it just seemed that they were all in a good place at that time.

2) Comment on Ted Kennedy's history of service. Provide examples.

He was a Senator that had provided a great amount of service to the United States. It was near the end of the eulogy where Obama mentions his actions after the horrific incident on September 11th. Mr. Kennedy had gone out of his way to call each one of the 177 families that had been affected. Not only did he just call them, he invited them sailing, played with their children and wrote letters to them. Ted played a key part in helping with these all these families pains and sorrows. Families were torn in half but Ted Kennedy was there to lend a hand for their pain. As well, he created many laws up to 300 of them for the very long span of time he was a Senator.

3) Comment on effective use of rhetoric (e.g. contrasting images of light/dark, good/evil) and (word choice...objectives used to praise him, verbs etc.)

Sure Obama did a fantastic job in presenting his eulogy for Ted Kennedy. However, it was his young 26-year old speechwriter, Jon Favreau, who came up with the words that so elegantly worked in describing the Senator. It seems near the ending of the speech where Obama discusses Ted Kennedy’s legacy that the speech would be over. This is a perfect example of contrasting images that were light and then to dark. First, talking about Kennedy’s legacy and then turning the tables and mentioning the darker days around September 11th. To conclude, Jon Favreau’s diction used during the eulogy was very humble and detailed in describing this wonderful man, who will certainly be remembered for his loving heart.

The Retreat

Dear David Bergen,

A couple things worked very well in your novel “The Retreat”. Your writing was very detailed and descriptive, and the metaphors used to represent certain situations in the novel were very interesting. On the other hand, I thought that the beginning of the novel was not very interesting and the plot seemed very stationary. I feel there should have been more a “bang” factor at the beginning, but sadly there was not and did not intrigue me as much as I expected. “Lewis had called the play dire. The actors were like spent swimmers who clung together and choked their art. Though these had been their father’s words, Lizzy echoed them now. Everett asked Lizzy what dire was and she said, ‘Desperately bad.’ They were in bed. Fish and William were sleeping. Lizzy was lying under a pool of light, writing in her notebook.” Pg. 87 This quote is good example of how you, the author uses metaphors that are interesting to me.

“Fresh croissants so buttery they melted in your hands before touching the mouth, and whole milk with thick cream, and muesli from the Swiss Alps, and then, after étouffing ourselves, we sat by the fire and smoked une pipe.” This piece of descriptive just makes your mouth water while reading, and having that feeling of waking up in the morning and having a wonderful breakfast. This practically describes your perfect type of breakfast to wake up to.

“Hart moved back to allow Raymond room, and as he did so, Raymond turned and swung his feet up and kicked out against his door. The door bucked outwards in a wild arc and caught Hart on the chest and waist and crotch. His face showed surprise as the air went out of him, and then he fell. Lizzy screamed.” Pg. 249 This part of the novel approaches near the end and is where the action starts to begin. After reading this part, I just intrigued me to keep on reading cause you could picture the scene so well.

Your novel seemed very sexual orientated why was that?

Why would you choose the main character, Raymond, to be a Native instead of another culture?

If you could re-write the ending of the novel how would you write it?

Sincerely, Michael Dawson

Rock Band 2 Vs. Guitar Hero World Tour

Rock Band or Guitar Hero it has always been a debate which one is the better game. Both Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 were released during the holidays this past December. This created a huge frenzy between kids and teenagers to choose which game they were going to ask for a gift for the holidays. In my case, I chose Rock Band 2 for my PS3. My reasoning for this was that Guitar Hero is not made for PS3 in the first place, the song selection had much more variety and the drums were much simpler to use. In comparison, Guitar Hero also has a wide range of great songs to play, from Jimi Hendrix to some Sublime. Guitar Hero World Tour was the first to include the drums, guitar and microphone, out of the whole series. However, before Guitar Hero, Rock Band had already created their full set of instruments and got a head start on the competition. Even though Rock Band had a head start it gave the creators of Guitar Hero to make changes those instruments by: creating a touch pad for guitar notes, extra pieces to the drum set by having 5 notes instead of 4 on Rock Band and new/innovative game modes than Rock Band.

Rock Band Positives/Negatives:

Positives: Graphics are very realistic in comparison to Guitar Hero, where the characters look more like cartoons. The song selection is amazing for every person it mixes some darker, louder bands with some light, easy listening songs for the girls. Drums are easy and simple to use.

Negatives: Switching difficulty of songs is annoying because if you want to switch in the middle of the song, you will have to reload to the beginning page all over again. Guitar is much harder to use than the Guitar Hero ones.

Guitar Hero Positives/Negatives:

Positives: The wide range celebrity characters you can chose to rock out with. The new drums, which create a new challenge for the player to experience and the new, touch pad for keys on the guitar.

Negatives: The clunky guitar, which is bigger than the old version of the Guitar Hero guitar, the smaller one was much easier to handle and play with. The drums seem to break fairly easily in time, and are not covered under a good warranty.

In conclusion, if I would choose out of the two games and I had an Xbox 360 I would purchase Guitar Hero World Tour as it provides a fun and more entertaining format for players.

"Men Who Stare at Goats" - Jon Ronson

The novel I read over this past month was Jon Ronson’s “Men Who Stare at Goats”. The author of this novel did a very good job in making it entertaining and humorous. He also writes very well in keeping the reader entertained by always having a joke that you laugh at, every time you turn the page. The plot of this novel is just so bizarre, that it’s hilarious that US Intelligence Agencies actually come up with these ideas, towards fighting the War of Terror. An example was their Special Forces, which came with ideas, believing that they could walk through walls and stare at goats and stop their hearts. The title itself sums up the bizarreness of this book, the funny thing is that this book is not fictional and totally the truth. Throughout the novel, Jon Ronson goes around the United States interviewing former military personnel and former Special Forces Unit. The madness of “staring at goats”, all started will General Stubblebine (1981 to 1984), when one day he decides that in his mind he could walk through walls. The General’s imagination runs on, and he goes to the Special Forces and suggests some of his bizarre ideas to them, military personnel were always wondering what was going in the General’s head. The story carries on, and in our present day, George W. Bush calls up for Stubblebine’s ideas in dealing with the war in the Middle East.

“Except for one last thing. Ten years later, Guy said, three Special Forces soldiers covertly traveled to Cleveland from Fort Bragg, having heard on the grapevine that Guy had once successfully stared at a goat to death on their base. They wanted to know if the rumor was true. They wanted to see it for themselves. They wanted Guy to kill a goat for them.” Pg – 65. This passage appeals to me because it very humorous and bizarre that people actually believed that this guy actually killed a goat by just staring at it. “The ‘high values’ were what the U.S. army called the suspected terrorists, insurgent leaders, rapists, and child molesters, although things were so out of control in postwar Iraq that many of the high values might have just been passersby picked up at checkpoints because the soldiers didn’t like the look of them.” Pg-174. This appeals to me because it shows the true racism that was going on in the paranoid government of the U.S. after 9/11. This quotation just describes how poorly people were just judged by appearance, for a being a terrorist, which is morally wrong.

1. Where did you first learn about the Special Forces in the U.S. army? 2. What bizarre subject will you talk about in your next novel? 3. Do you believe that Special Forces will be an important organization under new U.S. President Barack Obama?