Extra Credit- Analysis of Kristen Zemina’s MyStory April 25, 2009

            I am analyzing Kristen Zemina’s MyStory project. When I looked over her project, I definitely see it to be an excellent form of unconventional literature. She utilized some of the techniques that we learned about in class, from the other authors. I feel like she had a good grasp on our specific experiment’s goal, and did a good job of expressing her ideas in an unconventional way in her project. The text of her project functioned well as a paradoxical text.

            She used varying sorts of poetical techniques such as anecdotes, images, in which she incorporated herself, short, fragmented thoughts, and more factual thoughts. These functioned well to draw the attention of the reader. Her text was paradoxical, and against the myth in the way that she talked about a young girl who idolized a Russian prima ballerina. When we think about the cold war era, and the communists and their actions at the time, we don’t think about the effect that it has on young children, and what they are hearing their parents say about the Soviets. This girl was simply impressed with the Russian ballerinas, and how good they were at it. The ballerinas themselves weren’t bad communists, but the way her mother talked to her and around her about them, it made it seem like they were just as bad as the nation that they were from. The little girl kept saying how Natalia Makarova was ‘just like her’. She doesn’t understand her mother’s way of thinking that all people from a bad place are bad. This is an area of the cold war that was most definitely left out, because I have never even thought to contemplate this idea. She takes this idea, and makes it clear to the reader her ‘experience’, and it was definitely something that was a potential blindspot.       

            The affect that I gathered from this project was one of sadness and confusion by this girl who doesn’t understand why her mother won’t let her idolize this ballerina, that hasn’t even done anything wrong; she is just from the place that our country happens to be at ‘war’ with. There was also a small sense of rebellion. The girl was going against her mother’s wishes, and continuing to follow the ballerina and what she was doing.

            This project is a great example of critical expressionism. It clearly involved a lot of critical thinking, and she expressed her thoughts in a very expressive way that was able to immediately draw my attention. Besides the fact that I was just particularly interested in her topic, the way she sculpted her entries together and formed her images, figurative and actual, was very expressionistic. The images that she incorporated into her entries functioned well by adding to the effect of her words. By based on what we learned in class, and what we read, I feel that I can put this project into the same category as the authors that we read. It covered all the bases; it was paradoxical, creative, yet critical.

http://kzemina.wordpress.com/tag/mystory/page/2/

Response to Katelyn McDonald’s Response for EC April 13, 2009

Katelyn’s response was very intriguing. She begins with Mary O’Hares inner thoughts about her husband and his friend. She says Billy but i’m pretty sure she means Vonnegut. This allows us to see into her head and see what she very well could have been thinking about this novel that Vonnegut planned to write. Her Montana Wildhack segment brings in thoughts that Wildhack had that we as readers would be unaware of. We don’t know how she feels about Billy and his random jumps of time. The segments of Valencia Pilgrim and Robert Pilgrim are very similar to the others. They just give us a glimpse into their thoughts, whereas we didn’t really get the chance to think about them too much in the novel because they were such minor characters. I think Katelyn’s creativity was well done, as it shows us a new side to some of the smaller characters.

Slaughterhouse 5 – analytic response April 13, 2009

The novel Slaughterhouse 5 functions as an antidote to the myth of the ‘all glamorous war’ that is portrayed by many books and movies about wars, especially Vietnam. This novel makes a specific point to not make the characters out to seem like they are heroes and grown men; it explicitly explains that the boys sent off to war were children. It is even also titled ‘The Children’s Crusade’. Mary O’ Hare, Vonnegut’s war friend Bernard V. O’Hare’s wife was extremely perturbed about the novel he planned to write because she was afraid that the planned to make it out to be glamorous. She said to Vonnegut ‘ You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful’. This caused Vonnegut to understand exactly what she was saying and promise that he would make it as unglamourous as possible. This set the tone for the novel to be against the myth of all the other war movies and books.

Another good example of this antidote to the myth is the character of Billy Pilgrim. A lot of people are unaware of the emotional and mental effects that participating in a war can have on an individual. They see the soldier as a hero, a victorious figure that can’t be shaken. This is very untrue, and it is revealed through Vonnegut’s portraying of Billy. Billy had hallucinations and honestly believed that he had been taken to a nonexistent planet, Trafalmadore. He would wake up in different scenes, he was not mentally stable by any means.

Specifically this novel functions as an antidote to the myth by the way the readers are able to read and interpret it. It is a very interesting novel, and the text draws the readers in by the way it is constructed. The jumping around from time period to time period of Billy Pilgrim is a new mode of writing that we had not yet encountered. This requires us to keep focused throughout the entire novel or we will get completely lost and not know what is going on. The novel has crude humor that is also a new form of writing to our experience. It says on the back of the book “a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh”. This form of poetics is not typically used in books that I read, because I feel many writers are afraid of offending someone, but this for me was a very effective way to draw attention.

From Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, there are several techniques that we can use later in our writing. First of all, the use of  fragmented experiences. The way he jumped from one specific time to a completely different point in time. The way these experiences were not parallel, or linear but very seemingly unorganized. Another technique to use would be the humor aspect. Everybody likes to laugh, and incorporating this into your writing will be a sure fire way to grab the attention of those reading your work.

Response 6 April 11, 2009

Wonderful. I’m going to have to sit listening in my living room, while that alcoholic, brain scattered man sits in my kitchen with MY husband talking about the war. Planning out his book. Making it sound like they were a bunch of heroic, grown, mature men. That is just ABSURD! They were only children for God’s sake. They were no more mature than my babies sleeping upstairs in their beds. I can’t imagine the horror that those poor boys had to endure, and he wants to write a all glamorous book about it! I can’t take it anymore. I have to stop this. I can’t read another one of these Frank Sinatra John Wayne war loving books. I need a coke.

What is going on in my life right now?! Why is my father acting like this? Has he lost his mind, or is this some ploy for attention? Writing letters to the newspaper. Talking about aliens from Tralfamadore? His Friends, the Trafalmadorians? I knew that he was having a rough time but this is too much. He’s making our family look bad. I’m going to have to talk to his colleages at the Optometry office. He shouldn’t be around patients the way he’s acting, lord, I don’t even want to think about what will happen when he starts pushing his alien theories on his patients. Who will listen to an optometrist, who supposedly fixes vision and makes everyone see things clearly, that sees aliens and non-existent planets? I’m going to have to send him off somewhere.

This would be the perfect idea for a book. This man, Billy Pilgrim. What an interesting man. This anniversary party was a great idea. That lady, Maggie, is such a gullible character. She’s a bit boring, but I could look past that. I can make fun with her for sure. But back to Billy. I mean what did he see? He turned ten different shades of white. Just by listening to a song? He just about  passed out cold. I wish he’d talk to me, I’m clearly an expert on these things. I can just see the outline of my newest book now. Maybe people will actually read this one. Maybe not, most people don’t particularly care for stories of strange men, with hallucinations of aliens and different planets.

He was there? Yeah, right. This annoying man is driving me crazy. He is weak. I wish they’d just let him die. He doesn’t understand that I am going to write a real live historical novel about Dresden. He’s wrecking my focus. Wait a minute. What if he isn’t a crazy, echoliac nut case? What if he really was there? That could add so much to my book! Someone who was actually there, a personal account! What more history is there? Someone who will actually tell me what happened and how it was to live in that moment and still be here to tell about it! But he doesn’t want to talk about it. I must forget I ever thought this. I can’t let him know I actually considered believing him. I’m better than him, and he needs to remember this. So it goes.

Extra Credit – Eco Crisis April 8, 2009

 ”The Writing of the Disaster” is a book written by Maurice Blanchot. It is based on the idea that there have been many disasters in the world that have haunted and terrorized us. World Wars, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, and many others have all come at us and changed our lives. Blanchot’s questions how we can write about disasters when they ‘defy speech and compels silence’. Overall The Writing of the Disaster reflects on trying to write about disasters, and the threat that is inevitable. It really is so difficult to describe such horror in words that can effectively relay the message to readers, and this is what Blanchot spoke of in his book. The blogging of the disaster is a project similar to our own in which these individuals attempt to take a disaster that they see and blog about it.

“We do not explain the disaster, it explains us”.

The blog that I chose to look at was Eco Crisis. http://theecocrisis.wordpress.com/ This blog explains that eco is a prefix that means ‘house’, we see it in ECOnomy, ECOsystem, and many others. This is something that most people have never thought of before. The crisis explored in this blog is the shift of eco. Our loss of connection with nature is a piece of this crisis. This blog functions directly as unconventional discourse because of the way that the writer draws the attention of the readers. They incorporate many images and captions, and many videos that are meant to intrigue the readers and possibly spark a thought. There are charts that are meant to explain, and pictures that help the readers to see what the writer is thinking and the things that interest him/her. It is very unconventional, because  a lot of these images and videos are ones that most people would never come in contact with, so it sparks feelings and thoughts that we have never encountered before.

This blog is paradoxical because most people aren’t haunted by a crisis of change. The writer speaks and illustrates a crisis caused by shifts in economy, ecosystems, nature, and the shift towards a digital world, and most people would actually look at this in a direct opposite light. The page about the bees talks about how we owe a lot to the bees, and bees and their lifestyle can be relatable to human lives. This is not something that most people would think of, and agree with. It makes you think about the possibility of our lives being similar to the bees, and an empty parking lot being similar to a collapsed bee colony. These ideas are thought provoking, but very contrasting to the consensus opinion.

The author’s way of composing was effective. He used a lot of images and videos and quotations that really illustrated his points and thoughts very well.

Response 5 March 23, 2009

Part 1

The Plot Against America is a great novel that exemplifies throughout Roth’s desire to be an antidote to consensus. The fact that the novel in itself is a historical fiction is an antidote not only to consensus, but myth as well. The plot of the story is a drastic contrast to how we as Americans want to view our country today. We view our country as ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’, and do all we can to fight for other’s freedom as well. Roth portrayed the United States as a prison for the Jews, with their rights as Americans being snatched from them by Charles Lindbergh. A specific example of this contrast to the consensus is how the media and the majority of the nation are blindsighted by Lindbergh, and think that he’s just what the nation needs to keep them out of war and do whats right for them, however the Roth family and some of the other Jewish families still believe that he’s a liar and is out to get the Jews. The consensus belief is that Lindbergh is awesome, but the Roth’s disagree with this. Another good example to me is Alvin, and how he went off to Canada to fight. He was going against the doxa because all of America wanted to stay out of the war and away from the controversy. Instead of going along with the consensus actions of America, he gave up his right as an American of staying out of the war and went to Canada so that he could fight against Hitler, and in an indirect way fight Lindbergh and all that he stood for.

Chapters 8 and 9 were a defining point in the novel for me. To this point, Roth had intertwined what the media and the Nation believed along with how the Roth family was reacting, but in chapters 8 and 9 he separated the two. This was a very great way to grab the attention of the readers. He begins in chapter 8 with giving the reports of what was going on through the newsreel theaters. This was a very one sided view, and was strictly the facts, or what they chose to portray as facts. In reality, a lot of what was happening seemed to be very far fetched and possibly made up. In Chapter 9 however, Roth let us into see how all that was going on was affecting their family. An example that really struct me was in chapter 8 how they talked about the riots in Louisville and how there were 122 Jews killed, and then in chapter 9 they told that one of those killed was Selma Wishnow. This was a tragic event in the Roth’s lives, but we wouldn’t know that just by reading chapter 8.

Part 2

Roth’s technique that stood out the most to me was the way he mixed history and literature, specifically with chapters 8 and 9. The way he told  the news in one chapter and personal accounts in the next was a very good way to draw the readers attention. By putting his own personal experience in the novel, it adds a bit of emotion and draws emotion from the readers. By doing this, he also prevented homogenization because he let the readers know that what we read in the previous chapter about the majority of America and their feelings towards the events weren’t shared by his family.

Response 4 part 2(EC) Lauren Conway February 22, 2009

Lauren’s story was very captivating to me. She made clear through her talk of extra chocolate, her dad’s new job, and them having a new car, that times were looking up for the Europeans. Her incorporation of drifting into nature was well thought out. It was a nice connection to the works we read in class last week. I thought she portrayed very well the task at hand, to make a work putting yourself in that time and setting. At the end, the air raid practices were a nice way to bring the attention to the time frame. Although the French were in a great economic boom, it was a good addition so that we would remember that there is still a war going on out there and they are practicing just incase the Europeans are forced into it again. By reading this, I got a clear picture of the life that she was living, and how it was good; but she made sure to link it to the war.

Response 4 part 2 (David Lewis) February 22, 2009

David’s literary work was very well thought out, and easily relatable to me. It was the kind of fear he had that I couldn’t quite describe when trying to explain it  in class on Monday. His analogy of the storm coming from 90 miles out was well spoken, for it was a storm in a different aspect. The way he mentioned his dad in his story was a good addition. It added a bit more realism to it, in my opinion. I could almost feel how he seemed to be feeling just by simply reading his work, it seemed so realistic. It makes you develop a fear in the pit of your stomach, when you picture yourself in South Florida, anticipating devastation that may or may not come. When and if is a hard pill to swallow.

Response 4 part 1 February 22, 2009

I wake up at 11:00 to the smell of cold. Bitter cold. Cold only witnessed in the dead of winter. I have no idea what day it is, or why I have this pounding headache that consumes my thoughts. I think maybe I should eat something. I drag myself out of my bed and into my kitchen. What a wreck it is. Not sure why. I’m starving. I make some tea, and eat some toast. I sit at my kitchen table, my thoughts wandering into a state of utter despair. The clock on the microwave says 2:00 p.m. Have I been sitting here for that long? I get up to look out the window. The neighbors across the street are gathering the children off the bus. They hop along so carefree. Their dog is chasing the children into their storybook house. Their lawn is so well kept. Is mine? I cannot remember.

 I go back to my bedroom and turn my record player on. The sounds of The Beatles fill my house. I lose myself in the music and sit at my desk and begin to write. Music and writing are the only cure for my tortured soul. I loathe my neighbors. They are so standard. The mother is wearing her June Cleaver dress and pearls standing at her kitchen window. I feel her judgement towards me all the way over here in my bedroom. How did I manage to move into this neighborhood to begin with. That was years ago. Before the war. Back when I was a carefree youngster myself. I am constantly concerned about tomorrow. And the next day, and the next. What will come of me, and of my neighbors who seem to be living in a different world than me? Do they listen to the radio? Do they fear for their lives? One wouldn’t assume so, for they take their children to dance lessons and football practice everyday as if nothing is looming over our heads that could potentially destroy us any moment. Oh well thats their problem. I will sit in my misery, and keep myself unaware of all the others who have chosen to continue on with their lives as if nothing at all is wrong. I suppose I will continue to live in this dread, watching the storm clouds pass by my window, day after day. I look over the horizon at the sun set, and wish I could be far away from here, somewhere secluded. Somewhere that I could listen to the music of nature, and write, and where I too could possibly be happy.

Back to my kitchen window. The children are now running in sprinklers with the dog. They are playing ball, and riding bicycles. My, God. Do they not know how cold it is?

Response 3 February 13, 2009

            Elizabeth Bishop’s style of poetry writing was one of understatements in my opinion. This is sometimes what one would think of when you think of poetry, most people expect to have to have to really think about a poem in order to understand it, though sometimes we aren’t even meant to understand it at all. The subject and tone of the poem in lying in the words, and left to the reader to find. This is completely different from the ‘confessional’ type of poetry, in which one tells exactly what they are thinking in their poem, and describing their life in detail. Bishop was a fan of figurative expression and you can find many instances in each of her poems. In The Bight, Bishop talks about Pelicans crashing, and chicken wire, and other seemingly unappealing views. These particular figures can be the vehicle in this poem, that speculate a tenor of unhappiness on Bishop’s birthday. The smell of gas, and the oversized war birds, and unanswered letters give an unstated essence of bitterness, and unrest. We know for fact that Bishop had an unhappy childhood filled with tragedy with the death of her father, and the insanity of her mother, so it makes sense that she would inexplicitly have a tone of sadness in her poetry. In another poem One Art, Bishop talks about the ‘art’ of losing. She mentions losing keys, her mother’s watch, and two cities. This ‘art’ is what I take as the vehicle, although the specific objects she lost could be vehicles in their own. The tenor expressed is one of loneliness. Her losing her keys is not essentially important; it’s that she feels that she loses everything important. She feels like she is a ‘master’ of losing things, and this she states four times in her short poem. Keys get you where you need to go; therefore losing them will be a set-back. She didn’t ‘lose’ cities, maybe she had to leave them, and it seems that she loved these cities. She even says ‘losing you, I shan’t have lied’, which implies she lost yet again, another one she loves.

            The ‘arms race’ is a good example of consensus at work. American’s consensus belief was that we needed to be racing the Soviets in order to stay ‘on top of the world’. They seemed to have been supremely successful in World War 2, therefore they were the ones we needed to be on the lookout for. After our own government started expanding our armed forces, warfare vehicles and weapons, and even attempting to develop better nuclear weapons, our country began to think this was what we needed. Since this was the consensus belief, the myth developed that if we weren’t ahead of the Soviets in nuclear development, and even in the space race, we weren’t doing our job and we were losing. Our criticizing the government when we thought that the Soviet Union was advancing in technology farther than we had, was just our giving in to the myth. Honestly, most Americans did not know what the real deal was, they were just falling into line with the doxa.

            Figurative expression is a way of recounting things that is not explicit, but very vague, and somewhat left up to the imagination of the reader. The poems, or literary works have an undertone to them, but what the author is really thinking is never clearly stated. Take Bishop’s poems as an example, specifically The Bight. Her description of unpleasant things gives a tenor of unhappiness, as do many of her poems. Consensus discourse is more of a general accepted idea that is clear among the people. This is a conventional way of thinking that is widespread and doesn’t leave much room for alteration. Figurative expression is an antidote to the myth because it is the opposite of the common ideas which are clearly stated, it is implicit rather than explicit. Figurative expression could also be an alternative knowledge because it is so different than the conventional discourse. Benefits could be that it can mean different things for different people, but a hazard is that the tenor could be missed completely.