Saturday, January 29, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tim O Brien (visiting WCSU this semester) The things they carried
All of the short stories throughout Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried have various themes that are often reoccurring in each story. Two of the stories which show many different aspects of O’ Brien’s experience before and during the war are On the Rainy River and Lives of the Dead. Both of these were an interesting insight into what a young man goes through when he is called off to war.
In the beginning of the book O’Brien presents the story On the Rainy River. In this installment of his book he shows how he wasn’t interested in going to the war in the first place, and actually attempted fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft. Once he actually makes it to Canada he becomes very emotional. This leads to him turning around and going to war because of the sheer embarrassment he felt.
There are many different themes that can be found in this piece. Rules are a major theme here. The rules that O Brien is expected to live by he doesn’t agree with, leading to him attempting to break the rules. It turns out for him he has such convictions to the rules he can’t bring himself to break them. Shame is also something we see that is very apparent here. He can’t endure the shame he will be feeling if he actually flees to Canada. This is why he breaks into tears when he’s on the boat just 20 miles from the Canadian shore and then turns around to go home and be a part of the war. Truth is also scene here very prominently. In the beginning of this story when O’Brien has just finished school and he is working in the meat packing plant he has no aspirations to go to war. He claims he doesn’t know the truth about what happened to the U.S.S. Maddox and doesn’t know anything about Ho Chi Minh. All of the people he knows from town don’t know either they feel he should just go to war for his country. Showing knowing the truth about what is going on is very important not only in this story but O’Brien’s whole book.
Another story in the book where we see many opposing themes that we saw here is in Lives of the Dead. This is a much darker story in the book, but does have an uplifting message. The main theme of this story is death. As O’Brien explains the first time he fell in love. It was with a girl named Linda, they were just 9 years old at the time. Linda always wore a red cap. No one knew why until one day a kid knocked it off her head exposing she was going bald due to a brain tumor. Shortly after this she died. O’Brien explains vividly the experience of seeing her in the casket. This was a loss of innocence for O’Brien. He was seeing the first girl that he loved now dead in a casket in front of him. He was experiencing love and death for the first time as a young boy. This leads to how the soldiers in the platoon deal with seeing so many dead bodies in general. Dave Jensen, a member of the platoon, makes fun of an armless man that is dead on the ground. The men of the platoon often acted as if the bodies were still alive conversing with them just as a form of escape. Escape is such an important thing in this story and in any setting of war when you’re getting to know the soldiers.
There are many other themes in each story of the book. These were a few that re-appear throughout almost all of the stories and in any war story showing what the soldiers are really going through.
Rosemary's Texas Taco
If you’re ever in the mood for authentic Mexican food in the area, which is rather hard to come by in the North-East, you must check out Rosemary’s Texas Taco on Rte. 22 in Paterson New York. From the outside Rosemary’s Texas Taco looks like an obscure small home, but on the inside it gets even weirder.
Rosemary herself, a Texas native, has an image that is unforgettable for any of her patrons. Now in her early 80’s Rosemary still dons a very punk rock style to the way she dresses and presents herself. She still has dyed blue hair, which she used to often wear in a Mo-Hawk, accompanied by eccentric gothic style make up and clothing that she most likely purchased at a salvation army.
Her establishment also has a very original look to it on the inside. The walls are covered in memorabilia from 80’s punk rock, new wave, and even the Rockabilly era. She also has a pet parrot in the back room of the restaurant which recites curse words back to patrons if you entice it to. Accompanying the imaginative decor of the restaurant is the Westconn radio station WXCI; she always has this radio station playing during hours of operation. When you first enter you will hear her signature greeting of, “hey ya’ll.”
The food of Texas Taco is as greasy and disgusting as it is delicious. Anyone who enjoys real Tex-Mex style food should try it. The menu is quite small, “It’s about quality not quantity,” Michael McDermott a regular patron of the restaurant said. She makes up with her lack of variety with flavor and authenticity of her food. “The Tacos and burritos are so spicy they nearly burn your mouth off, but I can’t stop eating them,” Michael also remarked of her eatables.
If you ever have a craving for real Mexican food, Rosemary’s Texas Taco is the only place in the area to find it. You might think the inside of the eatery is quite unconventional, but once you try the food it won’t matter and you’ll realize it truly adds to the experience.
Print vs Digital, the real future for writers
Young writers attempting to enter the work force are in for a much harder struggle than they realize. We hear everyday how much the print industry is hurting. Magazines are being closed, bookstores are selling fewer books, and newspapers are firing their staff left and right. What can a young writer trying to get into the field do to make it? The answer to this question changes almost every day. The internet has created a whole new form of media. The technology is evolving at a rapid pace. Millions of Americans now have hand-held devices that allow them to surf the web at any time. The internet offers all the news you can get in a newspaper for free, so why buy a newspaper? Unfortunately, for us purists out there, print is dying, and will one day soon be officially dead. Books, comic books, and magazines will always exist in hard copy, if not for anything else than as a novelty. But we will see less and less of them over the next few years, that’s for sure. The fact remains, just because print is dead does not mean writing will die along with it.
The transfer of information has changed throughout history. The way we receive media will always evolve. We saw this in the slides that were shown in last week’s class. All of these technologies were once used, and are now considered obsolete. The newspaper was the first way many people could receive information on a wide scale. Eventually, we saw the radio, then the television, now the internet, come into play as important technologies. The way we receive information has always evolved, but the internet allows all these things to be available to us for free. The problem we often run into when receiving news online in a written form is that the writing is not as good as it would be in a traditional newspaper. At least we don’t think it is, or maybe we just feel that way because we’re used to holding the newspaper and having it in a traditional form. A lot of us still feel this way and aren’t ready for an all digital age. The newspaper has been a part of our society for centuries.
The younger generation who is coming up has grown up with the internet in their homes as long as they can remember. With the invention of handheld devices such as Kindles and I-Phones, they can receive information at the click of a button rather than picking up a newspaper. This generation doesn’t have the attachment we have to things such as newspapers and books. They have more of an attachment to their phone or Kindle. With the invention of the Apple I-Pad we will see more magazines going digital. Companies often want to capture younger markets. Tapping into the internet and new technologies is the best way to do so. These days there is still a large market of people who want the hard copy of a magazine, but someday this will no longer exist. Eventually we will be living in an-all digital age. What we are experiencing right now is much like the Industrial Revolution that occurred a century ago, but this is a digital or technological revolution.
Many individuals in the field of writing and others feel the digital age is bad for writing. There is no doubt it’s bad for the printing world, and may very well be the end of it someday. Young writers should use the opportunity the web offers. “Technology has already happened. Technology is a very strong current. It’s better to swim with it than against it,” said world famous horror writer Stephen King. Now rather than putting in years of work and paying dues to try and get to the top, you can do it from the comfort of your own home. If you are a talented writer and release your material in the form of a blog or even wanted to sell fictional pieces online, you could. There are millions of writers out there today who are trying this. “We’re tapping a genre or niche out there that isn’t being served. Internet Writers such as Maddox, Robert Hamburger, and I have received success finding an audience online,” Said Tucker Max. In some ways it makes the field much more competitive. If you are a talented writer, with a vision as well as focus, people will recognize this and have interest in your work. Tucker Max is a perfect example of this. He started a website where he would release well written auto-biographical stories about drunken adventures he had with his friends or one-night-stands with women. He doesn’t even have a writing degree; he went to law school. He said he started sending stories describing his misadventures to his friends via e-mail. They loved the stories and told Tucker he should really post these things on a blog or a website. Once he did this Tuckermax.com spread through word of mouth. Eventually this generated a book deal and a movie based on the book. The title of his book and movie are called, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. The book was very successful while the film was not.
The story of Tucker Max shows up and coming writers should be utilizing the internet rather than complaining about how hard it is to make it nowadays because of the web. There is a ton of garbage on the internet, and unfortunately there is no way to regulate it at this point. We will have to see what the future holds for us. The internet and the digital age could seriously hurt writing or it could give us opportunities we never had before.
When it’s all said and done, the internet presents a new form of media for writers to use. We should all be using it to its full potential, because someday it might not be as easy to get something posted on the internet.
sex before marriage
http://www.gotquestions.org/sex-before-marriage.html
As children growing up we are taught to believe many different fictional tales that all teach us a lesson. All religions have these stories, they help us understand what is right and wrong in the world. My family was never very religious, but I was raised Catholic. The Catholic Religion has many different rules and guidelines which are well known by the general population in the United States. Some of the things written in the Bible can be interpreted in many different ways. Some people take the ideas and lessons and get far too extreme with them. A myth that is taught in the Catholic Religion that never really stuck with me was, “you go to hell if you have sex before marriage.”
This idea is really not considered the, “norm” any longer in modern society. Of course there was a time when people stuck by this. Many devout Catholics, as well as many Christians in general, still live by this philosophy. Not only is this not considered normal by today’s standards many would consider it impractical. In the twenty first century many people, both female and male, would say you should definitely experiment with people or at least date before you settle down with one person for the rest of your life. I’m not saying everyone should be sleeping around, but I don’t think you get sent to a sleazy hotel room with the thermostat up to a thousand degrees just for having sex with someone before you’re married.
This idea is a big part of the Catholicism because it teaches an important lesson. Sleeping around a lot has serious consequences. The men who wrote the Bible had no idea what would happen in modern society, but instilling this fear in children is probably not the worst idea. Besides things such as STDs and teen pregnancy, there is a lot of emotional pain involved in relationships and having multiple sexual partners. The ancients had this figured out centuries ago, and this is still a fact today.
The idea that, “you go to hell if you have sex before marriage,” sounds absurd by today’s standards, but this can be used a valuable piece of knowledge. Not taking this so seriously is probably a good idea for anyone who seeks a worthwhile future with someone they truly love.
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