Superior Equality

As I started reading Leaves of Grass, I noticed that Walt Whitman starts out the book making the reader feel inferior than him with just two lines, his two starting lines,

"I CELEBRATE myself;

And what I assume you shall assume" (1)

With his first line he immediately makes the reader see him as good I whatever he does because we don't know yet. And with his second line he starts a psychological dictatorship. He states a completely egocentric fact in which the reader can assume very directly that there is no better opinion than the author's and it is even stated in a way that you would feel threatened if you thought otherwise. It just took me these first two lines to think what is up with this Walt Whitman? The second I read these lines I stopped immediately and thought who does he think he is telling me that I need to think what he thinks? I simply didn't know what to think about it, about his egocentric attitude, so I just kept on reading and it relieved me. It certainly relieved me because it said that I was equal to him. The first impression the first two lines give is an unnecessary statement of superiority but once you take a look at the third line which says, "For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you."(1) you see that it's because you are equal so you should think alike, which very few times happens.

It Just Flows

A Simple Heart starts with contextualizing the reader with what has happened so far in Felicity’s and Madame Aubain’s life. The way Flaubert describes the situations they have passed through and what they will pass is certainly pitiful. When Flaubert describes the precarious situation that they had to confront when Madame Aubain moved to her ancestors’ house, he somehow manages to get his description resemble the most precarious state a person can get. Part of his description is the following, “This house, with its slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to stumble”. His way of writing is very concise and doesn’t contain even a bit of wordiness, which is great. When an author makes his pieces of work wordy he/she overstates his ideas and makes the reader become uninterested about his work because what the reader thinks in this case is that the rest of the book is just more of the same last pages he has been reading.

But Flaubert’s A Simple Heart makes every single point of the book worth the while. With Flaubert’s style you can write about the most uninteresting topic in your opinion and, even if it’s bad, you’ll feel that you got over it really fast. When a piece or writing is not wordy it contains a lot of factual and important material which acquires what a wordy writing tries to do (clear things up) but in a more interesting and fascinating way.

A Literary Biography

After reading Gary Lutz's essay, it seems to me that he just narrated his life in a literary context. Apparently his development in words depended solely on him and on the things that surrounded him. His development is shown through stages chronologically from parragraph to parragraph. At first he shows that his family couldn't have been a trigger for him to start reading in his childhood because they didn't have that culture of reading really adopted. Ironically, the only magazine that came to the house was one of photography. Since people normally need something or someone to catapult their literary life and Lutz clearly lacked one, it is shown in the way he narrates his story and, obiviously his story in essence.

He proceeds to describe a sentence and the structure of it. Gary Lutz shows his fixation in details from this point on. He later performs a close reading about a four word sentence which I found great because you get to see the writer's skills in more aspects of the literary field than just writing. His close reading is so detailed that he even analyzes Christine Shutt's piece to the scale of syllables.

Nothing Happening = Boring

When Oedipa rents an Impala and drives to San Narciso a very elaborated description of the city is employed. The description has sort of like a mocking tone which clearly starts by the name "San Narciso". This is a paradox because being a narcissist involves thinking that you are great but it is mentioned that "Nothing was happening" (p. 13). When nothing happens, it usually lacks of fun or it simply is boring, to find a general rule, it lacks of interest.

San Narciso was described like if it was a "compilation" of house, buildings or other types of constructions united by pure coincidence, apparently like the rest of the region it is located. Pynchon says, "But if there was any vital difference between it and the rest of Southern California, it was invisible on first glance" (p. 14). This previous passage evokes the feeling in the reader that there is a difference between San Narciso and the rest of Southern California because the author considers it. The last two words of the passage give more of an enigmatic and confusing image of the city because if the difference isn´t seen on first glance, it means that it requires more insight and this is backed up later when Oedipa is looking downwards to the city and it reminds her of the first printed circuit she saw when she opened a transistor radio (http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2). I like the suggested metaphor because a printed circuit is something that is apparently organized but no one understands how it is organized.

Life´s a Competition

Individuals in any kind of species compete for nearly everything that is gotten in their lives. When you are trying to get something to eat, seem it or not, you are competing for it. Even when food is handed to you as easily as in a supermarket, you are competing for it to a certain degree. You might say that this is just in humans or in certain species but no, this is in every species and for every resource. Dawkins says that your biggest competition is in your own species because you know what you need for living and everybody in the species needs it so you have to compete for it to a certain degree. And there is an even bigger competition if who you are competing with is of the same sex because they will compete for the opposite sex´s attention.

What I like about this book is that every time after I read it I start thinking and reflecting. Besides, it is very interesting. For example, I had never thought of this before and how everybody you share your life with is a competition, but now that this idea has been proposed to my mind, I really agree with it. I agree with most of the theories of this book but there are some that completely interfere with my beliefs, especially religious ones. Dawkins presents an excellent example of this competition, he says, "Moles and blackbirds may compete for worms but blackbirds and blackbirds compete with each other for worms and everything else" (p. 67)

Muscles and Engines, Alike?

In reading The Selfish Gene there was a talk in which Dawkins was comparing the speed of plants and animals and how they were faster. When talking about how animals got their speed he said, "The gadget that animals evolved to achieve rapid movement is muscle" (p. 49). In his following points I found a very interesting metaphor that compares engines to muscles. Dawkins talks about muscles and engines (talking about the steam engine) and mentions a few similarities, he says that they both use energy stored in chemical fuel to exert mechanical movement, the only difference is that when making sudden force, the muscle creates tension and the engine creates steam pressure.

I personally liked the metaphor because I had always wondered how muscles worked. People had given me very complex explanations so I just understood the basics. In my mind it wasn't clear how muscles worked and whenever I asked people wouldn't know how to fully explain how muscles worked on exerting the force. Everybody knows that muscles are the organs in the body that exert the force but nobody really knows how they do that. So I was missing this question until I read this metaphor and description.

Thinking, Reflecting, Daydreaming: Which one is it?

As I started reading The Crying of Lot 49 I noticed that Oedipa is the kind of person that reflects a lot and goes far from the world thinking and wondering about life, she´s like a daydreamer. The very firts part of the book she receives a letter that mentions that hey ex-boyfriend has passed away and that she is the rightful owner of one of his houses. I suppose the house has the appearance of Pablo Escobar's farm, (off course not as exagerated) because it was once great and pretty but due to life situations, sometimes things get abandoned. Both houses were great and belonged to wealthy men but one of them got practically broke and the other got killed. Pierce had lost 2 million dolars in a business that didn't turn out as expected so he didn't even have money to pay for minor maintenance of a house. I suppose this house is good for Oedipa because it doesn't seem like her husband and her have a very good economic situation. Her husband worked as a sales man for used cars and now works as a DJ for a radio station.

The impression I'm getting from this firts bit of the book is that Oedipa is one of those persons who have not done always what they desire because of what people might think. She is a socially oppressed person. What makes me think this is that she thinks a lot and when people thinnk a lot about what they are going to do, they ussualy think of the expectations that society has for them. For example, towards the end of the chapter, when the doctor propose to escape she keeps thinking that she always wanted to escape through her relationship with Pierce, but now she doesn't even know whta she wanted to escape from! There it is, she thought so much about insignificant things that she forgot the most basic question of the topic. Maybe she just wanted to try something new, given the fact that she had never escaped before.

“We” is Everything

The first thing I noticed while reading this chapter is when Dawkins says, "We are survival machines, but 'we' does not mean just people. It embraces all animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses" (P. 21). He states that we are survival machines. Machines are always programmed to do something so what he is stating is that we are programmed to survive. What I think Dawkins means by saying that goes back to the introduction of the book, he says that by nature we are selfish. He means that if we are programmed to survive we´ll do anything in our power to complete our purpose and that's when the selfish gene takes action. We will do anything to survive and we are willing to step on top of others to get what we want no matter the harm we do to others. That's why Dawkins believes that humans must be indoctrinated to be altruistic. To be altruistic is to be generous but to a higher grade, to such level it is that when you are altruistic you even get to stepping on your interests for the interests of others. So being altruistic is the total opposite of being a Survival Machine. Another point that Dawkins touches is that we are all made from similar genes, though in general we result very different. He says; " …the genes, are basically the same in all of us—from bacteria to elephants" (P. 21). We all preserve the same type of genes or DNA in our individual environment. The same type of genes that a bird preserves in the air, is the same type that a tiger preserves in land and that a wale preserves underwater.

Can We Count With Our Own Help?

As I started reading The Selfish Gene , the thoughts that filled my head expressly contradicted the thoughts that I had when I read the title of the book or investigated about it. Personally I thought that reading a science book was quite boring because all you can expect from it is facts, which you do receive while reading The Selfish Gene. But what I got from the book is a lot more than what I expected from it. I saw that the way that Dawkins writes has, with no doubt, a scientific root but you get not just theory but you get more literature like author-reader dialogue than what you would expect from a science book.

I liked that Richard Dawkins has the point of view of a scientist; he is a realist person. He mixes up two things: his opinion and his investigation results. He says, "Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature" (P. 3) In that sentence, what Dawkins did is to express what he wanted (to build a society in which people cooperate by all means to accomplish a sole purpose) and to express his investigation results (When he says that we don't count with the help of biological nature). So what he says afterwards is that we are born selfish and, once again, tosses the reader with his realism saying that we can teach the individuals to be altruistic and generous but that it would be harder to teach generosity to a person that was born selfish.

Nobility

As I continue reading Candide, elements of satire keep appearing with time in a more abundant way. A mock of one of the most characteristic flaws in society is shown in chapter 13, and that is interest marriage. When Candide and Cunegonde arrive to Buenos Aires they visit governor Don Fernando d'Ibaraa, Don Fernando d'Ibaraa sends Candide to review his company. With Candide off his way, he is alone with Cunegonde and he proposes to her. She doesn't really want to marry him but the old woman that was the daughter of the pope said that it was better to marry him because it would make their situation better. Cunegonde finally agrees to marry Don Fernando d'Ibaraa. This governor is a representation of the importance nobles give to their names and their titles. He is shown as a hyperbolic representation of the nobles because most of them used to have interest for none other than themselves so they would step on top of anybody to get what they wanted. Don Fernando d'Ibaraa perfectly shows this because he is a doesn't take anything seriously and is a liar and a cheater.

Is everything really for the best?

When Candide and Cunegonde meet the daughter of the Pope, she tells them stories of her life. What I have seen Voltaire doing is that he presents the one optimistic point of Pangloss and then he presents a number of points of views that contradict completely the philosophic view of Pangloss about life. All that this old lady tells is about her disgraces in life. She has been victim and been present in horrible things such as violence, rape, slavery, and betrayal. Not only has she been a victim of sin but she has also been a product of it. This is certainly ironic because the most supreme figure of the Catholic Church has not only violated his vow of celibacy but has failed to protect his own daughter from the misfortunes that life made her victim of. After going through a lot of trouble in her life, she has learned the hard way and the old woman is sharing advice with Cunegonde and Candide. She tells them that it is bad to make judgments without prior knowledge of certain topic. She tells Cunegonde that it is too early to make judgments in her life because of her little experience. The old woman has lived misery in her life and that's why she describes life in a way of being aware that anything can go wrong.

Evil vs. Good

Voltaire recreated a scene that can be shown as a metaphor in Candide. When Jacques takes Pangloss and Candide on a business trip to Lisbon a sailor is drowning and when Jacques tries to save him he goes off board while the sailor goes back on the ship. This can be seen as a metaphor so the Sailor represents evil and Jacques represents good. So what Voltaire showed is a mockery of the optimistic belief that good will always triumph over bad. In this case ironically while Jacques tried to save the sailor he went over board and the sailor didn't do anything about it when he was already safe. But the mockery continues with the persistently optimistic view of Pangloss who said that the bay he drowned in was made expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in because it was his destiny.

Voltaire also makes a social critique of how women were treated in that time and their vulnerability. Cunegonde is shown as a figure that is very susceptible for abuse. She is also shown as if she were a simple piece of property. Cunegonde is sold and bought as if she was some kind of land or livestock. The book shows how Candide can be naïve because he saw that Cunegonde was being shared between the Grand Inquisitor and Don Issachar and he still felt the same love for her.

Nothing is for Free

Voltaire starts the book with Candide as the illegitimate son of the baron's sister. Being it already a disgraceful situation, His mother doesn't want to marry his father because he only has 71 quarterings and his mother has 72. This is absurd because to my criteria, both have plenty of quarterings and one quartering doesn't make a difference, unless you find a difference between a big shield with 71 little shields inside of it and one with 72 little shields. From the start of the book you can see that Voltaire uses various elements of satire. For example, Pangloss, the tutor of the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh has a philosophical belief that says,"those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best." After Candide is banished, he is helped by some men but his luck is just not with him so after they help him, they recruit him for the Bulgar army, where he suffers a lot.

Pangloss taught Candide at the beginning in the book and that was the only education Candide used to have. After Candide is banished from the castle he basically has to start over and learn from life. In the army which is one of his first experiences in the real life, life shows him that what Pangloss taught him is pure optimism but not realism. Pangloss taught him that this world is the best possible of all worlds but when he goes to war he sees the opposite.

Can You Put Up With It? (Epictetus Sections 26-30)

In these sections of Epictetus some very interesting themes are brought up. Section 26 mentions that you should truly empathize with what happens to other people because when it happens to you it is no graver. For example, if the brother of another person passes away you shouldn't be indifferent about it and say that things like that just happen. But when you brother dies now you make it a big deal and say that your world is tearing apart, and in that moment is when you should remember how you felt when it happened to other people.

Section 29 repeats somewhat what has been said in the first sections of Epictetus mentioning that you have to be prepared if you really want to be a philosopher. You have to see what it implies to be a philosopher. You have to act with hardship, be willing to give up sleep and put up with people laughing at you. I think this really gives a good perspective about philosophy because not everything in it is thinking and sharing ideas and everybody accepting them. This relates also with section 29 that mentions "For each action, consider what leads up to it and what follows it, and approach it in the light of that." (Sec. 29). It ties up perfectly to what is said because to analyze what it takes to become a philosopher and you have to see if you have it, and if you have it you have to see If you can put up you what it requires while you're one.

The Choice

Dear Robert Frost,

 

I just ask for you to decide yourself because there are very good motives to take either of the paths. Now that you have chosen which path to take, you have chosen a more unique experience choosing the one that has been less traveled by. Now that you have already chosen a road, as a philosopher, I advice you not to doubt of the choice you have taken and make an effort for not to think of what you may have missed by taking this road. I ask you not to wonder what you may have missed because if you had taken the other road you would've been wondering what you missed if you had taken this road. You have already made a choice and you didn't know what the choice was going to mean until you have lived with it.

 

With all due respect,

Epictetus

Not All Changes are Accepted (Handbook of Epictetus Sec. 11-25)

Section 17 mentions that any role that you are given in life you should play it the best you can. If you are given a role and you think you're better than it you should exert your role the best you can with the hope that destiny will put you in a role that suits you in a better way. The point of this passage is that your job is to get the tasks that you are given completed, your job is not to decide which tasks you are assigned. I believe that this is one of the wisest passages I've read so far in Handbook of Epictetus. This is certainly something that I will remember most of my life if not all of it. The best part of it is that it says you have to play the role the best you can no matter what role it is: if it's a beggar you have to play, then you have to play it but remember it's not your role to decide your tasks.

This book makes the reader realize things too, that it's not all color pink in life. It says, "If you crave philosophy prepare yourself on the spot to be ridiculed, to be jeered by many people…" (Sec. 22). People think that if they have a new idea, they will be congratulated and cheered for. The reality is that people in general never want to change because it changes their comfort zone. The world has changed to what it is now because of the people that put up with the put downs and aggravations. This not only includes philosophy but it includes all types of prophets that try to expand their beliefs. The perfect example of it was Christ, who came to earth claiming to be the son of God and not only was he rejected, but his followers were killed and were stoned to death.

The Uncontrolable (Handbook of Epictetus Sec. 1-10)

In this first Reading of Handbook of Epictetus I received an excellent impression of this piece of literature. This book could almost be like a manual for my life! In the very first part I learned that you cannot get frustrated trying to change the things that are not up to you. If you accept the things that you cannot change, you won't try to blame another person. Another thing I learned is that when something goes wrong, you can't blame none other but yourself. This also correlates with the serenity prayer in Slaughterhouse-Five when it says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…" (p. 209). When you blame other people you are actually hurting yourself morally because if you find the mistake in yourself, you will work to not make the same mistake unless you're a careless person. A related point to this theme of accepting things you cannot change is the one made in the next point (point 2). This point mentions to be careful in what you desire and what you averse. Your desire has to be of reasonable capacity of reach because "if you desire what is not up to us, you are bound to be unfortunate" (Handbook of Epictetus).

Deviating from the theme now, the fourth part mentions something about preventing that if something happens that you can't control you have an excuse to not feel bad. For example if you wanted do something as simple as going to the park, you said to yourself I want to go to the park "and to keep my choices in accord with nature" (Epictetus) so if something undesirable happens during your visit at the park you have a reason not to be annoyed because of what happened because you also wanted to keep your choices in accord with nature.

A Rushing Death

In the first part of chapter nine is Valencia, desperate because she has been told that her husband can die or if he survives he most probably will become a vegetable. This specific situation shows how in the most anguishing times you must remain calm. There is a reason for when flight attendants say that of an emergency you must remain calm. That is the first thing they say because if you let yourself guide by your emotions, you can end up like Valencia. If you see; Valencia had no risk at all of dying because: she wasn't sick, nobody wanted her dead and she wasn't a potential victim of any other risk that a normal citizen is forced to take, yet she killed herself with carbon monoxide poisoning for God's sake! I bet she could've imagined dying in many ways except from this one. If she at least had gone out of the car to see what exactly had happened to her car she might've noticed that the bumper was no longer attached to the car but "… she put her car in gear and crossed the median divider, leaving her exhaust system behind"(p.183). Because of the lack of an exhaust system, the car had lost the correct way of the disposal of the gases created in the engine therefore when it stopped the interior of the car got invaded by gases.

Another thing that pointed out to me is that heading towards the end of the chapter, when Billy went into the bookstore. When Billy looks at Kilgore Trout's books, he notices that they have to do with alien things, like a Trafamadorian message that they want him to see. Also when he is in the adult section of the bookstore he sees a movie about Montana Wildhack. In the movie she is in an alien zoo. This confirms my theory that the Tralfamadorians wanted to send him a message. The message probably was that he had to go to the radio station and say what he said about Montana Wildhack and Trafamadore. Vonnegut may also use this to make the reader realize that Billy is completely insane, that Tralfamadorians don't even exist and that this Trafamadorian view of going on an infinite journey in time is just all in Billy's head.

Schlachthof-Fünf

In chapter seven of Slaughterhouse Five Billy, miraculously, is the only one that survives the plane crash with the copilot. When the plane crashes Billy's skull is hit and fractured. When his is practically dying in the snow, some ski instructors from a resort nearby come to the site. One of them saw him half alive and thought he was saying his last words. Billy thought the instructor had something to do with World War II and "he whispered to him his address: 'Schlachthof-fünf´" (P. 156 Vonnegut)

I personally took the time to find a translation to what he said. It actually means Slaughter-house five. He clearly spoke in German so I found the translation in internet. In the story he spoke in German because as stated before, he thought the ski instructor was a soldier or someone who had something to do with World War II. He finally survived and he was taken to a small private hospital and attended by a famous brain surgeon. Billy remained unconscious for two days "and dreamed millions of things, some of them true. The true things were time travel" (P.157 Vonnegut). The last part made me realize that Billy is having dreams of his own life and like any other person, while dreaming, can make things that are total fantasy look true. So this passage suggests that the time traveling that has been happening over and over again are just dreams of the past Billy has had. It would also give an explanation to Tralfamadore and it is the following: it´s just simply a crazy idea that went through Billy's head because the book said that of the million things he dreamt of only some of them were true. So he could've dreamt in other parts of the book and invented Tralfamadore. Billy didn't need a very elaborate thought to invent Trafamadore because in the book it says that he just spent a few earthling seconds in Tralfamadore.

Inside Knives

In chapter six there was one special event that amazed me yet still terrified me. When Lazzaro tells the story of how he took revenge on a dog that bit it was one of those parts that you want the whole information the page has gets into your head right away because you cannot wait to see what happens. Lazzaro tells this story when he is mentioning how sweet revenge is. It says the following:

"When he was gone, Lazzaro promised Billy and poor old Edgar Derby that he was going to have revenge, and that revenge was sweet.

'It's the sweetest thing there is'" (P.138 Vonnegut)

The theme in this part is clearly revenge because it is mentioned so much and so emphasized. When telling this story, Lazzaro tells it with such tranquility that it can even transmit a feeling of irony. In some kind there is poetic justice for the dog because while he wanted to eat Lazzaro from his physical outside, he wanted to eat his inside and then he reflected it outside because "Blood started coming out of his mouth. He started crying, and he rolled on the ground, as though the knives were on the outside of him instead of the inside of him. The he tried to bite out his own insides" (P.139 Vonnegut). The way Lazzaro tell the story shows his sadism and how he is willing to have revenge even with an animal that cannot think, this shows the bitterness of his life.

It is stated clearly that Lazzaro has an obsession with revenge. An explanation to this could be some grave event in his childhood that could've affected him for life for him to end up thinking this way. At the end he says, "Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is, it's revenge" (P. 139 Vonnegut)

Unused but not Forgotten (On Living Latin)

In David Crystal's blog I read a fairly interesting article about how the latin language has been dying over time despite being the root language of spanish, italian, french, rumanian and many other languages and dialects that conform a vast percentage of usage in the world. I agree to what David Crystal says in this blog post about how you know when a language dies. He says "The distinction between life and death can be a bit fuzzy, when applied to language." This is true because a language is not like a person, that only depends if he/she has a heartbeat or not. It´s different with a language specially one that has been around for so many years and has made that much history. To define if a language is dead or not is very difficult because the process is very gradual so you cannot distinguish when it´s actually gone completely because there will always be the few last people that spread their knowledge.

A Reflection in the Phone

In chapter 4 of Slaughter-House Five there is a part when Billy made me remember about the first part of the book. When Billy cannot sleep and goes to his daughter's bedroom, the phone rings and "Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath-mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number" (P.73 Vonnegut). This reminds me of the first part of the book when Billy called people he hadn't been in touch for years, being drunk at late night. I don't know why did Vonnegut used this occasion to remind the reader what Billy did when he was drunk at late night. Maybe he used this to reflect Billy. The roses are a symbol of love and they could actually represent that he mostly called women that he had been with late night. When it says that it was a wrong number it could mean that because he is sober in this moment, he is ashamed he would be too shy to do it so he would need to be drunk to call these old friends.

Another thing I noticed in the reading is that Vonnegut doesn't need a person to die to say "So it goes". When he goes downstairs in his house, right before watching the WWII movies, he found a bottle of champagne "So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes" (P. 73 Vonnegut). I personally think Vonnegut is mocking his own saying when he says "So it goes" after saying that the champagne is dead. So he could say: "That statue is dead. So it goes". By this point this saying has lost its meaning to me. Another way to interpret this is that he is so depressed and champagne makes him drunk so when he is drunk he is depressed and everything makes him sad.

Past, Present, and Future

I have liked the author's way of writing this far because it's kind of pessimistic but not boring. The following passage is an example of a pessimistic thing Vonnegut says: "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future" (P. 60 Vonnegut). Though what he said is true, that Billy couldn't change anything, but it still gives a depressive tone to the story. What is depressive of this passage is that Billy could not even change the future because everything is already decided for him, no matter what he does, he will always end up as it is decided for him. What I see as a reader is that Billy Pilgrim didn't influence in the decisions that were made for his life: that he was going to be an optometrist was as decided as the fact that he was going to be born. I guess here is where the depressive tone comes from; from the fact that he knows that he is just a marionette of fate.

It is clear that Billy has sleeping disorders because in the day when he is examining patients falls asleep in the middle of the appointment, but when he tries to sleep in a comfortable environment, he needs the help of a machine that makes him fall asleep. We know that this was caused by post-traumatic stress, but post-traumatic stress doesn't only affect your sleep, it can cause severe mental disorders so it makes me question the veracity of the stories he tells.

“So It Goes”

Reading this chapter I realized that my prediction in my previous blog post was right. As I said, this way of writing really interests me because it goes back and forth in time. The proof of this is when the book says "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time"(P.23 Vonnegut). This form of writing is very interesting because when it goes back to the time that the story is being narrated, it analyzes what happened. This time is used to express regrets or affirmations of what happened in the time narrated.

More than different parts of his life they seem like "separate stories" because he apparently had a very changing life. He talks about 1922 when he was born in Ilium, New York he was not a very good looking guy in his youth he had more of a weak profile, so maybe he wasn't into any sports activity or anything because of his physical description. When he describes the time when he was studying in the Ilium School of Optometry and he got drafted by the military, because this passage lays beside the previous description I suppose happened in that time, Vonnegut also says "His father died in a hunting accident during the war. So it goes" (P.24 Vonnegut).

This "So it goes" I have noticed that it is mentioned by Vonnegut when something of evil nature has happened. I suppose he says this as a subconscious way to close the subject because he really doesn't want to talk about it anymore, especially if it's how his father died.

Check, Check

Hi Mr. Tangen, I was just checking if posting from a word document worked from my computer.

The First Impression: Often the Truest One

Slaughterhouse Five gave me a very good first impression on this first reading. The author talks in a very interesting way, almost neurotic. When I saw that the character was going write a book about World War II the book got me more than it had already had. Of all the important events in history through mankind, the one event I´ve been especially attracted to is WWII it has always been of great interest to me because it pivoted the way the world was heading and made it take the path that it is today; it has been a very grand event in history.
Vonnegut starts talking from his point of view but then says “Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. I´ve changed all their names.” (p.1 Vonnegut). What has happened in this chapter is that the author tells the reader how he’s living as of now and starts talking to old friends by the phone when he’s drunk. I wonder if this drunkenness and his need to talk to old friends he has never seen since war has to do anything with post-traumatic stress of WW II, maybe it has a symbolism that represents his regrets for those times: the drunkenness represents regret and his calling friends issue may seem that he might share his regret.
As soon as Vonnegut called O’Hare and said “Listen, I’m writing this book about Dresden. I’d like some help remembering stuff. I wonder if I could come down and see you, and we could drink and talk and remember” I figured out this first chapter was going to be the story of the meet between the two of them and the rest of the book, the memoirs of them throughout the war. If my prediction is right I personally think it’s a very interesting way to right a book. These type of books that go back and forth in time are very interesting because they tell the story and then when return to the present they sort of analyze it.

An Ideal Ending

How I think the book would continue if I were to continue reading a hypothetic continuation is very unusual.

A Utopian View

Where differences are not discriminated,
Opinion ought to be shared
And violents are to be eliminated

The totality of the problems repaired.
People live undisturbed and quiet
Because in society there is no despair.

It is many people’s economical target and
In many ways, the population is rich.
Food in served in the table as a banquet

From Dust to Dessert

In the episode “To Serve Man” from The Twilight Zone Mr. Chambers was apparently a specialist on languages or something similar to it. His job was to translate a book that was brought to earth from some type of aliens. Mr. Chambers' boss says: “I suggest that for the time being you continue your process of deciphering until you can tell us precisely, and I mean precisely what that book says.” After hearing this order he acted very arrogantly as if there was no need of checking all the book to see what it said. The only thing that was translated was the title that said “To Serve Man.” Mr. Chambers didn’t care much about the rest of the book because he let himself guide by the title, which he was confident to be with good purposes coming from an alien proposing new ideas to America. The attitude of Mr. Chambers doesn’t serve very well because at the end of the story, suffering the consequences when he’s boarding the alien spaceship, his secretary who did take the time to translate the book that the alien gave them ran off and told him that the book was actually a cook book (I have to admit this part made me laugh). When he was alarmed he was forced into the spaceship and in the spaceship he made a very interesting kind of soliloquay where he noticed that the aliens were going to eat him so he said “We'll sooner or later be on the menu” which is a very profound statement given the context of this episode. Later, the narrator said that we were part of a metamorphosis that coverts us "from dust to dessert", from rulers of the world to condiment in someone’s soup.

The Twilight Zone

Mr.Tangen I couldn't view the episode of The Twilight Zone. One link said that if I wasn´t in the US I couldn´t watch it and the other did not buffer the video I'll try in different computer tomorrow to see if it works. Sorry.

Chatting Robin Banks - Sue Purglew

Robin Banks: How you doing baby?

Sue Purglew: Great! I just went out of gym, boy I'm tired.

Robin Banks: WOW! Your coach really keeps you long hours huh?

Sue Purglew: Yeah, it really sucks but...

Sue Purglew: What'd you do?

Robin Banks: Just went out with some friends to have lunch.

Robin Banks: Hey are you going to the party tomorrow?

Sue Purglew: What party? what are you talking about?

Robin Banks: Roberto's party, didn't you get invited?

Sue Purglew: NO I'm soo pissed.

Robin Banks: Doesn't matter he's like my best friend you can go with me.

Sue Purglew: Aww that's sweet, of course I'll go with you.

Robin Banks: ;) you can always count on me but, you better be ready I don't like to wait.

Sue Purglew: Of course I can't wait for tomorrow night!!

Robin Purglew: See you

Blog Race

The first paragraph of this excerpt really got me thinking. When Sarah Boxer mentioned that she had received the idea of making an anthology of blogs I was thinking “why didn’t this occur to anyone before” but through the reading I made myself aware that it wasn’t possible. As much as we’d like to have a bunch of blogs in one book, it just wouldn’t be the same experience. The fun and you may call it even purpose of going through blogs is to choose your own path because as Sarah said “Bloggers breeze through places, people, texts, and blogs that you might or might not know without providing any helpful identification”. I like to think of the blog network as a giant tree and an important part of being a blogger is to find your way through the branches of the tree checking anything that you want out, including profile information from the author, other post that he/she might have made apart from where the link took you to. So my opinion is that Sarah received the idea of writing an anthology of blogs in a book not because it would be interesting to read blogs in a book but because it simply is a great idea to carry all the experience blogging has to offer in something as handy as a book.

Unexpectedly blogging has become a very important media tool to divulge information about whatever the blogger wants to write about. To my impression from what Sarah Boxer has said, bloggers are willing to post anything if it guarantees them that they will have a high number of people reading their posts. Like it says in the last paragraph of the excerpt “One of the surest ways to hoist your blog to the top of the charts is to bring down a big-time politician or journalist.” Being it false or true bloggers will always write something that makes their blog a permanent transit of readers and fellow bloggers. “In 2004 many right-wing blogs helped the Swift Boat Veterans sink John Kerry's bid for the presidency” this proves that blogs have been a fast emerging way of communication that has the capacity to bring down a strong presidential career. Another way of keeping reading traffic in your blog is not only by yourself, but if you post really interesting things other bloggers will post links on their blog that lead to your blog and that a way to measure how popular your blog is. If your blog is really popular you’ll become a “blogebrity”.