Jack's a Celebrity.

One of the things which makes Ma and Jack's lives harder in Room after their escape is the fact that they have become famous, with the media trying to get people interested in their story by twisting public perception of their time in Room, and ordinary people becoming fascinated with them, especially Jack, and their story. Much of this fame is portrayed as a hindrance to Ma's and Jack's adjustments to normal life, as they try to hide from cameras and keep out of the public eye. Jack, on the other hand, appears unphased by the attention he gets.

There are several instances where we see Jack interacting with his fame without a full understanding of what's happening: Ma carries him past the "vultures" into the police station, he sees himself and Ma on TV, he signs autographs for people at the mall, etc. In none of these instances do we see him opposed to his stardom, which one could argue is because of his lack of familiarity with the concept of fame and what it may mean for his life. However, I would argue the opposite: It doesn't take Jack long to comprehend what his fame means, and, though he clearly does not grasp the effects it could have, he understands it clearly enough to enjoy it.

The first time Jack has the opportunity to recognize his new fame is when he watches the television in the doctor's office right after the escape. He sees himself and Ma on TV, and it greatly intrigues him. In this instance, Jack's fascination is likely a result of his inaccurate understanding of television, but he was still quite interested in seeing himself to the point that he became somewhat frustrated that the receptionist turned the television off. This is where we first see the trend which persists throughout the novel of other people becoming extremely concerned about Jack's fame and his own recognition of it while he only finds it enjoyable.

During this first encounter, Jack likely doesn't realize that there are thousands of other people watching him on the television as well, so his lack of concern does not yet reflect an affinity for his fame. However, subsequent encounters indicate that once he understands that people recognize him, his appearance, and his unique experiences, he has no problem with it, even attempting to take advantage of his popularity. This can be observed as he is taken out with Deanna and Paul, and he intentionally reveals his identity despite having been told that it was important conceal it. In this case, he uses his fame to spite Paul and Deanna and get the book he wants. It works extremely well, as he gets what he wants and appears not to suffer any negative effects, which is likely what he wished and expected.

This shows Jack's ability to recognize his fame and use it to his advantage, but the incident which proves his affinity for his fame and the public's recognition of him is the incident at the mall with his grandmother. For the few moments during which she is separated form Jack, he is discovered by people who figure out who he is, and he willingly signs autographs. Jack's narration of this scene includes mostly direct quotes, indicating that he is not totally sure of what his fans are thinking or why they're so interested in him, but he notes that they were his new friends, which, along with other instances with strangers, indicates that he enjoys socializing with new people. Since his stardom helps him meet new people and create bonds he considers friendships, from his limited perspective, public recognition of Jack can only be to his benefit.

From a broader perspective, one could argue that Jack's fame is problematic for his development, but I would again argue the opposite: his fame is neither beneficial nor problematic. As Jack must adjust to an entirely new world with oodles of new concepts and norms to learn, learning to deal with fame is not as shocking as it would be to a normal child. It's only another thing to which he must adjust, and to him, it likely doesn't stand out as something any stranger than the rest of the things he doesn't understand. In light of the numerous other things facing Jack, fame is only a small hindrance which he won't have additional trouble adjusting to. Therefore, the fact that he enjoys his fame in the process of learning to navigate it is as beneficial to Jack as he believes it is.

Jack's Things

In Room, when Jack begins to experience life in the outside world, it is clear that there are a tremendous number of things about how the world operates that he doesn't understand. One of these is the idea of ownership; at first, he struggles with the idea that something which exists can be someone's other than his and Ma's, since everything in Room, which used to be the extent of his world, was shared between them. However, even before he leaves Room, he begins to take something for himself, and he continues to do so after they escape.

The first object that Jack takes ownership of is Ma's bad tooth. Once it came out, it was simply lying around Room, and Jack didn't quite take full possession of it at first. He treated it much lie anything else in his limited world: it wasn't his or anyone else's, it was simply there, so it was his and Ma's to enjoy. While he values the tooth more than most other things in Room, since it came from Ma, he doesn't see it as specifically his. Even as he tucks the tooth into his sock in preparation for escaping, he doesn't yet convince of it as his possession, rather as a part of Ma, the thought of which gives him some courage. Interestingly, however, he does demonstrate some unwillingness to give it to Officer Oh, which points to the conclusion that he understood that he had a right to keep it before Ma told him that some things belong to other people.

Once in the outside world, Jack is still gaining an understanding of what it means for something to belong to him or someone else, but we see him taking full advantage of his knowledge that things can belong to him. He gathers some "treasures", including Ma's tooth, a maple seed, and a heart that fell off a bag, which he keeps for himself. Eventually, we see him refer to these objects as "my treasures", and he refers to the backpack Paul and Deana get him as specifically his as well, showing that he comprehends his ability to have control and ownership of them.

This would appear to point to a better understanding from Jack of the concepts he hadn't been introduced to in Room than might be assessed at first, but we also see that hes conception of property is limited as he doesn't understand how people are supposed to attain things such that they can belong to them. This is demonstrated by his unintentional shoplifting of the Dylan book. What this shows is not only his lack of a complete understanding of the functions of the outside world, but also the potentially problematic certainty he has of the things he thinks he understands, such as his ownership of the book, which immediately gets Paul and Deana into trouble. While this may be  typical of a five-year-old, situations like this do not bode well for Jack's adjustment to the real world.

A Friendly Bet

A topic which has been largely neglected in our discussions of A Lesson Before Dying is the bet which Sheriff Guidry and Henri Pichot have over whether Grant will be able to turn Jefferson into a man before his execution. The fact that we have not touched on this much is not surprising, since Gaines mentions it just as infrequently. However, it is a powerful representation of the themes this book expresses.

This bet clearly shows the contrast between the care that Emma, Lou, Grant, and other members of the black community feel for Jefferson, as demonstrated in numerous ways throughout the book, and the lack of interest beyond the potential for personal gain that the Sheriff and his wife, Pichot, and whites in general have for Jefferson. Even though Pichot bets in favour of Jefferson's successful progression, his lack of interest in the outcome outside of the case of whiskey he bets demonstrates his lack of sincerity and his involvement in the system which caused Jefferson's predicament in the first place. Largely, his and the Sheriff's intention in allowing Grant to visit Jefferson in jail is for their own enjoyment. Meanwhile, Emma's intention in sending Grant to convince Jefferson of his humanity is to benefit him and those who don't see him as a hog and don't want him to die as one.

The bet also has a more depressing implication. Grant's goal in making Jefferson a man is not only to make Emma happy; he also wants Jefferson to stand up against the system which named him a hog and killed him. Though Jefferson does this, it appears to be of little consequence, as he stands up against the system only long enough for it to kill him officially. The bet is another example of the futility of Jefferson's walk to the chair. Though it is not shown or considered in the book, it is safe to assume that Guidry, who bet against Jefferson, would not have given in to Pichot right away. He likely argued that walking to the chair was not an accurate measure of Grant's and Jefferson's success. Even if he had defined walking as the definition of Jefferson's humanity months before as he made the bet, the fact that the "official" definition is made by a white man who, as sheriff, is as integral to the oppressive system as anyone could be, means that the system continues unscathed after Jefferson's success.

What Gaines does by keeping this bet out of the centre of attention of the reader for the vast majority of the book is that he makes it a more perfect representation of the system of oppression. The whole book is about fighting against the system, which is done as the system continues to operate. As personal struggles and hopes of success begin to gather attention, less mind is payed to the perpetual nature of the system, since putting a dent in its function seems possible. However, just as the bet rears its ugly head once more in Jefferson's diary before his death, the system's integrity goes on despite the months of effort Grant has put in and the success Jefferson had. 

An Unlikely Hero

In As I Lay Dying, the case could be made that almost any of the Bundrens is a hero in the sense that they undergo a hero's journey, including, I believe, Addie. Her journey involves her death.

The first step of the hero's journey is existing in the ordinary world, which, for Addie, means living. Next, she must be called to death, which her father does. As she recalls, her father told her that living is to prepare for being dead for a long time. Her refusal is not an outright refusal; rather, she spends significant time unsure of how best to prepare to be dead, and assumes that hitting children is the way to do it. She finally accepts her call to prepare for death when she has Darl and decides to take revenge on Anse by making him take her to Jefferson when she dies. She mentions that that was when she realized that her father had been right, even if he couldn't have known it. This is both an acceptance and a modification of her quest: she accepts that she should prepare for death by deciding to use her death to hurt Anse. After she has Jewel and two other children, she feels that she can get ready to die, and then she does.

After she dies, Addie makes Anse's journey less enjoyable and more difficult by stinking quite badly, perhaps making bacteria her ally, but I feel that she does considerably more than that. It is my (outlandish) interpretation that Addie may have influence from beyond the grave, which she uses to produce the storm which floods the river Anse has to cross and causes the wave of inconveniences which follow. This ability is hinted at in the last two paragraphs of Addie's narration, where she says that she could get ready to die after she had implied that she had lived much of her life trying to prepare for death. She may have meant that she was plotting Anse's problems. In the final paragraph, she mentions that, to people like Cora, sin and salvation are just words. Contrasting this to her statement that "words are no good" implies that she wants to use more than words; she prepares events for Anse's displeasure.

If she indeed causes problems for Anse after death, then her ability to do so would be the supernatural aid of her hero's journey. The problem is that, though she may find personal pleasure in taking revenge from beyond the grave, Addie never seems to complete her heroic journey. Though her literal travels end, Anse's suffering ends with it. Perhaps she is content at this point, and her return to the ordinary world is simply being buried.

We Don't Like Telemachus.

It's basically unquestioned that the most disturbing moment in The Odyssey is at the end of Book 22, when Odysseus and Telemachus have finished killing all the suitors, and they proceed to kill the female slaves who had slept with the suitors. The reasons for the disgust this scene creates are strong and numerous, but we have mostly attributed Homer's decision to include such a brutal killing to the difference between our views of this manner of murder and the views of Ancient Greece. However, I believe that he includes many of these horrific details to make it clear that Odysseus and especially Telemachus aren't perfectly moral heroes; perhaps, we aren't supposed to like Telemachus at all.

The strongest example which I believe points to this conclusion is the discrepancy between the emphasis Homer puts on the suitors and the slave girls. As we have discussed, he spends several books showing us the crimes of the suitors, which are likely meant to make us hate the suitors as much as Odysseus does. He shows us over and over that they deserve death, as they treat Odysseus, disguised as an old beggar, extremely poorly in his own halls, refuse to give him a taste of his own food, and throw his own stools at him. All the while they show no sign of redeeming qualities, even when given the chance. Homer clearly intends that the suitors look evil and deserve what they have coming. In contrast, he spends almost no time describing the crimes of the slaves Odysseus has killed, giving little more reason for their slaying than their disloyalty. At times, he even seems to stick up for them, as Odysseus notes that the suitors made them do the things he kills them for, and Homer compares them to birds being caught in a trap as they simply try to fly to their nests. The reader has little reason to believe that they should deserve a punishment as great as death, let alone the a more torturous death than the suitors received.

This brings us to Telemachus. While Odysseus made the decision that the slaves deserved to die, a decision we see that he had made well in advance, it it was Telemachus whose spontaneous "initiative" worsened their deaths. Odysseus tells Telemachus to "hack at them with long swords", which is roughly equivalent to what he did to the suitors. Telemachus, who develops into a hero through the course of the poem, develops one more step by insisting that the slaves not die a clean death. In my view, this is the step that draws into question whether we should continue to support him. His heroism flourishes at the same times as his father's, during the battle with the suitors, as he killed several of them in support of Odysseus and as revenge. Yet, he only shows "initiative" when none is needed, when he has the slaves trapped. He brings his development as a hero and as a warrior too far, taking revenge on those who Homer appears to believe don't deserve it. If I am correct in this assessment, then it should be clear that Homer means for us to lose all our appreciation for Telemachus as a hero.

Athena's Plan

We have discussed Athena's role in the section of The Odyssey where Odysseus wakes up on the shores of Ithaca. It was largely agreed upon that she has a great admiration for Odysseus and his cleverness in his deceit and trickery, and that her role is partially, if not mostly, as an audience to his schemes, as evidenced by her compliments to him and telling him to apply his skills to trick the suitors and dispatch with them rather than plotting for him as she did for Telemachus. However, I feel that this is somewhat a simplification of her role and that, in fact, she has plans of her own for Odysseus.

The first thing which struck me while rereading this section at the end of Book 13 was Athena changing Odysseus's appearance. Even though she had told him to think of ways to strike the suitors, she didn't simply tell him what was happening in his house and left him to his plots, which a reader could only assume were likely to have been successful. Instead, she inserts herself into the situation further by giving Odysseus a new appearance. There are two significant aspects to this action. First, this is entirely Athena's idea, no input from Odysseus was given, which contradicts the idea that she simply wants to watch him do his stuff and enjoy the show. Second, while she could just as well have given him a disguise, she chose to do something to his appearance which Odysseus could not undo himself when the time came. Athena would be required again to change him back into his original guise, which implies, though does not require, that she had some indication already of when she would need to do that. In other words, she likely had a plan for how Odysseus would set up and approach the suitors before she changed his appearance.

Athena even hints at her plan by telling him what effect the change will have, to make the suitors and Telemachus see him as ugly, and telling him who to go to first. While it could be argued that she is only giving him initial conditions which will set up a show she wants to see, the more obvious explanation (to me) is that she is setting up a situation which is likely to guide Odysseus towards carrying out a plan she has already finished plotting. It is unlikely that she would have given him a first step to take (talking to the slave) if she wanted to see the full extent of his creativity in action, even if the majority of her plan is to allow his abilities to lie carry him forward from that point forward. 

The Ideal Hero

I've really never been one for a hero's journey plot. They're so common that they can no longer support a good story on their own. To keep them interesting in their pure form, a writer must work extremely hard to produce interesting characters and an interesting setting, which is something I think most writers fail at. They tend to either make a story that's still dull or make one suitable to the writer's fantasies but too far removed from reality to draw me into it. That said, it is common to find stories which come somewhat close to the traditional hero's journey while still straying from it enough to inject it with some interesting aspects. It's also possible to claim that enough elements of a hero's journey are present in stories which are clearly not what Campbell had in mind to classify them as nearly a hero's journey. The hero I believe has had the most influence on me fits into this category.

That hero is a character played by the incomparable Catherine Tate (which is part of the reason I was attracted to her character) on the brazenly over-rated television show Doctor Who. As the arc of a hero's journey can only be observed (or, honestly, contrived from) her first appearance on the show, I will focus on the first episode with the character of Donna, which happens to be a Christmas special. That episode goes like this: Donna walks down the isle at her wedding and is mysteriously sucked into the Doctor's time machine somewhere in space (her "call to adventure"), and she demands to be brought back to the church (her first of several "refusals of the quest"). They land somewhere not near the church, and Donna does some more yelling at the Doctor before she borrows ten quid off a lady for cab fare. Meanwhile the Doctor notices that there are many Santa Clauses around which are actually killer robots, and one of them is driving Donna's cab. So, he gets into his space ship and flies along-side the cab so she can leap into it (her first reluctant "acceptance of the call", sort of). After a short excursion, they go to Donna's wedding reception, where more robot Santas try to kill her family (a "test"). The Doctor tries to get to the bottom of what's going on, so he, Donna, and her betrothed go to their work, where they discover a secret basement (and Donna has another "acceptance" moment) and a big red spider lady who wants to use Donna to feed her children and eat the earth. Then, her future husband reveals that he's working for the spider lady, and the Doctor uses the robots' remote control to drain the River Themes into the spiders' pit and drown them while Donna tells him when to cut it out ("supreme ordeal"). With everything mended, Donna stays behind with more knowledge, experience, and maturity ("return home").

What I find appealing about this particular iteration of the hero's journey is Catherine Tate's character. Even though Donna is arguably not the main hero in this story, she did manage to go from ordinary and "not clever" to helping to save the world, which makes her somewhat heroic, all the while retaining the thing that makes all of Catherine Tate's characters great: her endless spunk. In my view, if you can rescue the universe from destruction, that's great for you, but a true hero can do it and express her displeasure in a sassy way simultaneously.

An ordinary hero often seems irreconcilable with an ordinary person's life: they begin as an utter looser and finish almost godlike, and, all the while, their persona doesn't make them the sort of person you'd like to have a coffee with. Donna, on the other hand, would be the ideal person to invite over for a cup before and after her ordeal. She's relatable in that she excels in humour and frustration (often at the same time), and she's awesome in that she has the experience of time travel and is an outright hero.

This is the sort of character that is supposed to be the subject of a hero's journey. She's someone who most anyone would instantly admire as a person, yet she still needed to mature at the beginning of her story. As she did that, all her best characteristics flourished, and her life became more meaningful than it was before. This shows the reader what a story should: the average person can become great due to circumstance or whatever, and they can keep those traits that made them great before.

All posts from here on will be for Heros Journey.

Chairs

The most important element of any sitting room is the ability of its occupants to achieve a state of total relaxation. Very rarely is an uncomfortable assortment of sitting apparatuses the highlight of a sitting room one would judge to be of any reasonable level of quality. For this reason, the average sitting room is interspersed with various pieces of furniture with thick, soft padding and cushions on top of which plush pillows are placed. All of it, regardless of visual style or appeal, is meant to provide anyone who wishes to take a seat with the upmost comfort. However, with relatively few exceptions, the average person whose goal is to relax will always choose one particular piece of furniture to occupy over all the others: a sofa.

In many ways, a sofa is the ideal place to relax. Its occupant may sit up or recline to whatever degree they wish to and support themselves with the stiff sofa back or arm or with softer pillows. This gives the sofa not only an unparalleled level of comfort, but also great versatility. One can stretch across the entire length of a couch, in which position they can relax, destress, or sleep, or one can sit more upright, allowing multiple people to share in its comfort, each of whom can sit in a wide range of positions.

The same can not be said of chairs. The average chair requires its occupant to sit in an upright position, which may be acceptably comfortable, but it is not a position which readily suggests total relaxation. It makes a person feel constrained, as they unsuccessfully adjust their posture to achieve greater comfort which the chair can't offer. After moving back and forth, ramming into each arm and having placed their rump in every possible location in between, a person will eventually exhaust the narrow range of positions the chair offers, and become saddened as they resign themselves to the limited comfort they can achieve in their disappointingly designed seat.

Without peak comfort, it is tremendously difficult to achieve peak relaxation, and this fact is often exploited by the users of chairs. When a person wishes to work on something other than recreation, they tend to sit in chairs, where they have marginal comfort, but would find it more difficult to skive off than if they were seated on a couch or bed, where the temptation exists for them to simply lean back and recede into a world of blissful relaxation, free of work or deadlines. The chair removes this temptation by making its occupants prefer to distract themselves from their mild discomfort and focus on the next most readily available thought, which, in many cases, is work. This tendency is exploited by the average person whose goal is to complete a task, but also by workplace managers, who offer their workers a place to sit in the form of a chair; they keep the workers in discomfort to maximize their productivity.

The chair, therefore, despite its limitations in the sitting room, can be considered a useful tool. Much in the same way coffee stimulates a tired person, the chair narrows their attention. Obviously, this is not a perfect solution to the problems of distraction and laziness, but it is a significant improvement on most other furniture.

Heat

It's cold out, and if we don't want to freeze, it would be best to make our homes warmer. Generally, we do this by blithely turning up the thermostat, which is usually a knob with some numbers on it which rarely if ever reflect the actual temperature indicating one of those numbers with the knob would create. Then, we wait for warmth to penetrate the air, giving no thought to system which performed this miracle, but the system makes all the difference.

I would assume that most people have central heating, where the thermostat turns on a big furnace in the basement or under the stairs, and the heat it creates is piped through vents to every room in the house. I've got a system like that as well, and I know all the little quirks it has. For example, the warmest room in the house is the tiny closet off the kitchen we put food in and call a pantry, because the largest vent runs next to one of its thin walls. So, when I get cold, I know I can simply grab a snack to be enveloped by a satisfying bubble of heat. Other rooms, meanwhile, are absolutely freezing, like that tiny room above the garage we stuck a bookshelf in and called a library. Whoever designed the house decided that this room needed no warm air, so the only vent in the room is a return vent that sucks out all the warm air that had trickled in from the adjacent hallway, and that air is replaced by what filters in through the poorly sealed windows.

The point of a central air system is that you barely notice it while it makes your house warm and comfortable, but it utterly fails in that regard. With temperature differences as dramatic as those, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the reasons that they arise. Those reasons, as becomes clear with very little thought, is that the thermostat is only bothered with how warm its thermometer is, and it's only got the one in the one room. If another room is draftier, the thermostat pays no mind and delivers no more heat to that room than to any other room, resulting in the house acquiring a second, much larger refrigerator.

An alternative is presented in heating each room individually with space heaters or radiators, something done in the especially cold rooms of my house. These are often not terribly powerful appliances, but with sufficiently many of them, adequate warmth can be achieved. However, these also have their disadvantages. The first and most annoying of these is that each room must now be tended to individually, as each thermostat must be constantly adjusted to keep a temperature that is still not indicated by the dial. The other disadvantage is that they are more prone to setting things on fire, as they are completely exposed. However, if you ignore that slight smokey odor, then you might find that radiators have their benefits as well. Because they are heating up significantly smaller spaces than furnaces, their heat can be felt more quickly, and if you can't even wait for the heat to move across the room, you can stand over the radiator and become almost arbitrarily hot. Another advantage, at least in my opinion, is that radiators are not designed to operate entirely in the background while remaining unseen. You get the satisfaction of knowing when they're working when you hear them ticking and clunking, noises which can become extremely soothing. They also provide decoration, the modern ones appearing almost like floor molding.

This is the topic I have been leading up to: while the functionality of a heating system is its most important quality, there is still something to be said about its ascetic qualities and its visual appeal, and these qualities are the largest distinguishing factors between different heating systems. Central heating, as I have said, has its beauty in its ability to be completely concealed. No one must know where the furnace is or what it looks like in order to feel its effects. This allows for other decorations and furnishings to be placed where more obvious heating systems would be. It also provides the pleasingly quiet sound of the air rushing through a long metal tunnel followed by a noticeable yet subtle boom as it turns off. Modern radiators, meanwhile, present themselves proudly on the edges of rooms, not demanding attention visually, but not fearing it either. They provide a backdrop for the room, much like woodwork, and windowsills, which further decoration may be based on. Their ticking, similarly, provides background noise, which is helpful for the focus and sanity of the room's occupants.

Topping both of these systems, in my opinion, are old-fashioned radiators which have several parallel tubes nearly a meter high. While they may be functionally antiquated, their charm and appeal has not been lost. These appliances are decorations in themselves, contributing to the character of a room as much as the colour of its walls. They can be modified to match any style, some demanding attention with their rustic designs, while others, with their simple, round tubes, appear almost minimalist. What does not change from one old radiator to the next are the sounds of clunking, banging, and ticking which scare away pesky children and sooth more matured and refined people. This is a noise which lets people know that they are home and helps people, or at least me, fall asleep. They also have an advantage in their heating capabilities. Because they are much larger than modern radiators, the old ones must not reach the same temperatures, so most things placed on them won't burn. This means that, should one of these radiators is installed in a bathroom, towels may be placed on it to get warm. Few things feel better than a warm towel on a cold day.

Overall, while I have favoured old radiators to other heating systems, I have shown no displeasure with newer radiators or furnaces. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and both are overall good systems. The one system I mentioned which I find infinite problems with, however, is the space heater. With all the bulkiness of the old radiators and none of the style, these monstrosities appear to litter rooms rather than add to them. They require sprawling cords, and most have no thermostats, only high and low settings, meaning a large discontinuity in the levels of heat they produce. Further, only being plugged in to ordinary wall sockets, they don't have access to the power required to heat a room properly, even on their "high" settings. They are feeble, ugly, useless, and constantly being tripped over. Space heaters have no redeeming qualities, especially in the midst of their more powerful, more practical, and more visually pleasing competition.

Radio

Many of us listen to the radio. We listen to it when we don't have our phones or other sources of music, a radio is available, and we want to listen to some "popular" songs. This situation usually happens when we're in the car and just about nowhere else. So, this is the fate of radio: it has been permanently relegated to playing cruddy music in a place where there's so much other noise that it can barely be heard. So much for that.

The above description is generally true: most people only listen to bad music with their radios, but the simple yet elegant sound box can offer more than that. There is, for example, news broadcast over the air waves. If we wanted, we could catch up on the latest headlines. Many sporting events are also played with a radio announcer sitting in a nearby booth, so we could make sure that pitiful team we root for isn't losing again.

At this point, I'm struggling, because there really isn't much more being broadcast anymore other than news, sports, and disgusting collections of noises some call music, yet the radio used to offer significantly more. People used to turn to their radios for all sorts of entertainment, namely that thing we are unconsciously desperate for: radio shows.

A radio show is a unique form of entertainment. By providing the sounds of conversation, a radio show allows freedom in the way we imagine a scene, but it still allows the ease of sitting back for easy listening. It's the perfect thing to wind down to. As you try to bring your brain out of overdrive after a hard day's thinking, focusing on the sounds of a humorous, dramatic, or engaging radio show can help to turn off the unnecessary parts of your brain so you can relax properly.

If you're thinking, "that's what television is for", frankly, you're wrong. Television is too severe of a drop in brain activity after lots of thinking. It requires no thinking at all, providing everything that each scene is comprised of. There's nothing left for the viewer to do. If you try to stop thinking that quickly, you'll be plagued by an excess of thought, and you won't be able to appreciate the show you're watching.

The only problem is that people don't appreciate a gradual drop in thoughts enough to care about radio shows. They simply don't want to put in the effort, even if it does assist relaxation better than television. Radio shows, therefore, have all ended. The only decent ones left are recorded on old, stretching cassette tapes, and radios are permanently ruined by a lack of variety, a lack of interest, and a lack of appreciation.

Squirrels

Squirrels are such adorable little pests. They make themselves utterly cute when they hop around, enjoying their days. They've got wonderfully fuzzy tails that seem to move so effortlessly through the air when they run. They run quite often, and they dig quite often too.

When I talk to most people about squirrels, they simply can't get past their negative tendencies. People seem to think that a squirrel's only natural function is to deface lawns. They see them as ugly rodent pests. My mother is one of those people. Whenever she sees a squirrel, she remarks, "look at it there, digging up our lawn", even if it's resting harmlessly on the pavement. She also focus on their habits of taking much of the food she tries to grow in her garden. "How", she aggressively wonders, "can such a small animal steal an entire tomato?" Very effectively, it seems.

But surely the odd tomato and three square centimeter patch of grass can be sacrificed in order to sustain the population of these fuzzy little creatures. If we could overcome our tendencies to ignore all their good qualities and focus only on the minor irritations, then we would realize how much joy squirrels could bring to our lives. Simply admiring them can put a smile on anyone's face.

Have you ever looked a squirrel dead in the face? If you did, you would have seen beautiful, clear black eyes revealing the squirrel's uplifting attitude, a furry little nose begging for some kind person to come and give it a boop, and a hesitant mouth slightly ajar, wondering whether to find more tomatoes to eat or to keep looking into your pleasing eyes. Such a kind face has rarely been seen on a human, but this face is common on squirrels. Why should we not peer into those beady, squirrel eyes more often?

Have you ever seen a squirrel taking a nap on the top of a fence post? If you have, you saw a creature in utter peace. Sprawled out over that fence post, the squirrel has made a tranquil bed out of what you had previously thought of as only a lump of hard, unforgiving wood, and it looks adorable doing it. Could you really imagine it dreaming about maliciously robbing you of tomatoes?

Squirrels are so much more than thieves and miniature plows. They brighten our lives with their chirping, their fuzzy underbellies, and their cute bushy tails. We shouldn't look at squirrels with disgust and anger over their instinctive habits. We should appreciate that they are just as cute as any other small fuzzy animal and admire them as such.

Tree

As most of you know, I spent every lunch period during my freshman and sophomore years in a tree by the south doors of Uni. As far as I could tell, people thought it was cool and creative of me to sit there. (If people actually thought I was just an idiot, those people can stuff a large stick infested with ants and termites up their snoots and wait uncomfortably for their eyeballs to be eaten through from the inside.) Here are some of the reasons I began eating in a tree and why it took me so long to leave.

At the end of subbie year, a time none of us like to think about, I was beginning to notice that the people who I thought were my close friends weren't that close after all. Since I had been eating lunch with them, and a clear disconnect was forming between myself and them, it didn't take me long at the beginning of freshman year to abandon their crummy lunch group (who needs them?) and seek out a new spot to eat in. At first, I thought I could eat with some other group of people, but I realized that was a dumb idea once I remembered that we were one of the most cliquey, disconnected classes in Uni. I decided to eat wherever I pleased rather than with whomever I pleased.

This train of thought led me outside, because the outdoors has fresh air, colourful scenery, and fewer people to reject me. Out of convenience, I had exited out the south doors, with the intent to wander around the corner to the (sort of) green space between Uni and Uni Gym. However, the moment I rounded the corner, I saw oodles of upperclassmen who I thought would have been more than happy to bury me under the rocks of the picnic area, stomp all over the ground above me, and place one of the wooden tables (remember them?) on top of me as a place marker and scratch "rip" into it. I didn't think the air under those rocks would be too fresh, so I turned around. As I nearly hit my head on that now-famous tree limb, it (nearly) hit me: I would eat in the tree.

The branch was nearly level and surprisingly comfy. There was another branch just within reach that I could use as a table. The air was delightful. It was the perfect spot.

Soon people started to walk by. Even though it was still early in the year, a surprising number of them, with their zombified faces staring straight ahead, didn't even notice that I was there. I chuckled. Those that did notice gave me more civility and open kindness than I had had at lunch for quite a while. It was refreshing, and they gave me a satisfied smile that lasted the whole period.

While there were no people beneath me, my time was my own. I could think aloud freely. I was not constrained by the presence of judging humans. All I had to do was enjoy my surroundings and my food. It reminded me of British gardening shows, where everything was "pleasant". The only thing that could have made it better was flowers. Those came in the spring.

Between summer and spring, of course, was winter. It was cold, and my hands got numb, but I didn't care. Fewer people passed me on the sidewalk, and I had even more freedom to think aloud than before. When it snowed, there was glistening beauty covering a bleak backdrop everywhere. Flowers were unnecessary. How could I leave such a paradise?


(How? The lounge, that's how.)

Alarm

At least once or twice a month, something will be cooking in the oven at my house, and a small piece of it, usually a speck of cheese, will fall onto the oven floor and catch fire. What ensues is a tiring struggle to fan a tiny puff of smoke away from the smoke alarms around the kitchen. There were two of them: one was in the hallway, and one was at the top of the staircase leading down to the basement. It was never fun to put up with the eardrum-shattering beeps while waving a hand-towel of futility at the alarms, but it got worse when my dad decided to put in a third.

The third alarm was technically in a different room, but it was still in the same area: in the sun room, near to the doorway, right next to the kitchen. When my dad suddenly came in saying that he had a new smoke alarm he was going to install, by brother Linus and I told him that it was a bone-headed idea. We would then have three smoke alarms in the one area where they were more of a pain than a safety device, and if there were a fire in the sun room, the nearest alarm was already fewer than ten feet away. As was typically the case, he didn't listen.

He climbed a stepladder and placed the alarm on a ledge near the doorway. He pushed a button to activate it, and a small red light flashed. With his job complete, he climbed back down and said something about how that would keep us all safer, a statement to which Linus and I both rolled our eyes.

As Dad was folding up the ladder, the new smoke alarm suddenly started beeping. Flippantly, I said, "Oh, there's a fire. Run for your lives." Dad let out an aggravated sigh as he put the ladder back up to examine the alarm. He pushed the reset button, but the alarm continued to beep. Linus, who was not enjoying getting his ears blasted out, demanded that the alarm be shut off. I voiced my agreement. Dad pushed the reset button again, and nothing happened. Before Linus could become unpleasantly agitated, I suggested that the battery be removed from the alarm, a solution so simple, I was somewhat aggravated that he hadn't thought of it himself. Dad took the alarm down, but he did not take the battery out. At this point, Linus and I were both getting unpleasantly agitated, as we asserted that the best course of action was to remove the battery. Dad then informed us that there was no way to open the alarm to remove the battery. Statements such as, "What do you mean?" and "Whose stupid idea was it to make a smoke alarm you can't shut off?!" followed.

As Dad looked at the instructions on the package, Linus trotted down the basement stairs. I was somewhat annoyed that he wasn't going to suffer along with the rest of us, but I was prepared to join him if the alarm could not be silenced soon. Apparently, the instructions recommended to Dad that he push the reset button, which he did. Then he pushed it again. And again. Just as I told him to quit faffing around with the reset button, Linus returned with the off button: a hammer. He told Dad to give him the alarm. A short discussion took place, and Dad agreed to relinquish the alarm to Linus. He took it and the hammer outside. Before long, there was a loud bang and the sound of shattering plastic, followed by a heavily distorted "bueeoueoep". There were several more bangs. Linus walked back in and declared the alarm dead.

As my ears recovered, I began to appreciate that we would not be installing a third alarm where it would be least useful and most annoying. Our reluctant attempt had been a waste of time and an unpleasant experience, so I assumed that another would not follow. I was, however, wrong. A couple days later, Dad came home with another alarm, which he installed without incident, though there were plenty of arguments and reminders of what had happened the last time. Luckily, this new alarm came with two buttons: one marked "test", and one marked "silence".

Cookies

A cookie is little more than a mass of flour, sugar, often vanilla, butter, and various other items lying around the kitchen that have been warmed in an oven until golden brown (or in some cases, a considerably darker brown). Despite the simplicity of these small bundles of health problems, some of us humans (and occasionally our pets) find ourselves uncontrollably attracted to them, resulting in those of us with greater restraint being beaten to the cookie jar by our hungrier counterparts and finding, when we finally get there, that there are no cookies left for us.

Every year around Christmas, this is the problem in my family. As a tradition, my mother devotes herself to baking so many "seasonal" cookies that we nearly run out of cookie tins to store them in. She makes several different styles of cookies, from traditional jam and chocolate filled German ones, to decorated sugar cookies, to new creations from online recipes she discovered five months ago but decided not to make until what she considered a more festive occasion. No matter what the cookie, my brother Linus devours them all. From his usual unresponsive position behind his laptop screen and between his extra-loud headphones, he will mysteriously arise and follow his nose to wherever it senses the strongest aroma of freshly baked sweets. Often while they are still piping-hot, he will begin to almost passively consume large quantities of the sugary treats.

An hour or so later, I will be wandering through the kitchen in search of a quick snack, and, on the table, I will find two cooling racks, one with cookies and one already cleared. I casually pick one up, sniff it, take a bite, and smile as I savour the flavour that has begun to satisfy my sugar tooth. Meanwhile, Linus will reenter the room with his laptop and other necessities and sack out at the table to guard his hoard from any more of my thievery. His most common response when he sees that I am eating from his treasured stash is to show exaggerated emotion as he bites into the first cookie of his sitting in an attempt to deter me from eating his joy. Then, as I try to reach for one myself, he will surround the cookies with his arms, attempting to appear jovial while blocking me from the cookie rack. As I attempt to penetrate the blockade, his sinister intentions become apparent as he tells me to "Unhand my cookies!"

The pursuing argument lasts only a minute or two before he reluctantly agrees to relinquish a single cookie to me. As I leave, I give him an evil look to let him know, "this isn't over", but before I can return for round two, all the cookies are gone.

All Posts from here on will be for Nonfiction Writing.

Win's plot to get the US involved in Cuba again was to take a shot at President Kennedy, and from the first time he mentioned his scheme to Mackey and Parmenter, he made it clear that he didn't want to kill Kennedy; he wanted whoever the shooter would be to miss completely. Why, then, was Kennedy killed?

At first, knowing only that he would be killed, I assumed that with such a complex plot managed by only three people, somewhere along the way there would be a miscommunication or misinterpretation leading to Oswald killing Kennedy. However, as I read further, I found out that Mackey himself, who was in on the whole plan from the beginning, gave the order to Ferrie to recruit Lee to kill Kennedy and told Raymo directly to hit Kennedy in the head. In light of this, what could have gone wrong with Win's original plan? Mackey would appear to have no motive to kill Kennedy; like Parmenter and Win, his motive for contributing to the plan at all was to force further US involvement in Cuba. To achieve this, it would probably be better for their shooter to miss, because if someone who could be traced to Cuba were to actually kill the president, it might cause an over response from the government. Unless I am a very poor reader and have missed something, DeLillo reveals no other reason for Mackey to kill Kennedy.

The only reason DeLillo states that might cause Kennedy to be intentionally shot is that, as Win says, plans tend to take on a life of their own and move toward death. However, the "life" of the plot is not revealed to us. All we know is that Mackey avoided contact with Win and Parmenter and at some point independently chose to kill Kennedy. Any reason is left to the imagination. In a way, I think that is the point. DeLillo's picture of the Kennedy assassination is an interpretation of extremely vague evidence partly to point out that almost anything could fill in the details from a fairly simple explanation to the most complex conspiracy, but we will never know exactly what happened. His conjecture as to what may have happened must exclude certain details, because the most complete picture we will ever get, even if we were to have all the material that DeLillo's character Nicholas Branch has, will not include every detail. Motives especially would be hard to piece together, so it is only natural that these are the things Don leaves most unclear.

Another point I think he's making with this deliberate lack of explanation is that plots really do pick up a life of their own. With a plot as complex as the one he described (and much more complex ones have been proposed), any little error could easily cause an unwanted result, and any member contributing to the plot can direct it in a new direction, much like the reason for Win's plot in the first place: the failed Bay of Pigs, where one person's decision caused the whole plan to fail. The only difference between this and Win's plot is that instead of the result being a failure, it was a more severe success. Much like Oswald, Mackey leads a complicated life, and much like the official story (and DeLillo's) says that Lee killed the president despite all the reasons he seemingly would not, Mackey seems to randomly lead the plot to where it ends up killing Kennedy. The reason for this must be unclear, because it is unreasonable to expect every part of such a complex plot to reveal itself, even if that part is a person's decision, just like Lee is too complicated to fully comprehend in anyone's interpretation.

Win and Lee

Win Everett devises his plot to start a conflict between Cuba and the US by staging a fake assassination attempt on Kennedy, which he will blame on Castro. One thing to note about Win's plan is that it is rather extreme. While an attempted assassination on the president is more certain to provoke anti-Cuban anger than less extreme plots, it is also much more dangerous: if there is any slip-up, it is bound to be noticed by one of the hundreds of investigators who would be working on discovering the culprit. Why would he want to take such a risk? Another point is that, from the very beginning, he planned to cause casualties. Though there was supposed to be no risk to the Kennedy, someone had to be blamed for what investigators would see as a true attempt on his life, and that someone would undoubtedly face severe consequences. That man, in Win's plot, is just some guy who would believably have tried to kill Kennedy and who could be framed cleanly. In other words, Win plans to cause casualties of innocent people (or at least one innocent person) in order to start a war in which there would undoubtedly be deaths of innocent people.

What all this looks like is a war. Not a war against Cuba and America, no, that's just a part of it. Instead it's what Win, Parmenter, and Mackey see as a war between pro-Castro and anti-Castro forces. This is a war which has already started, which resulted in the Bay of Pigs when the anti-Castros were winning, and which made the Bay of Pigs fail to put the pro-Castros ahead. Both of these events caused real fighting and real deaths: the consequences of war. Now that the anti-Castros are trailing, Win devises a plot causing someone to take the blame for an attempted assassination. This sounds an awful lot like an officer ordering suicide mission. Just like the officer would see the casualties as unfortunate but necessary, because they died in the name of something greater [cringe], Win sees the Bay of Pigs, his shooter's arrest, and the fighting that will result as unfortunate casualties of war which are necessary to out Castro, which is somehow more important.

Returning Home

The section of Kindred, "The Storm" begins with Kevin and Dana returning home together after Kevin had been trapped in the early 19th century for five years. Naturally, after five years, Kevin wasn't quite used to what he knew should have been "home". Even Dana, who had only been away for a few months, remarked to herself that the Weylin house seemed more like home than her real home. The only thing she feels is more "homey" about her house is that it is in her own time period. What this shows is that both Dana and Kevin have become so used to the Weylins' house, that they are beginning to recognize the location as home, but, more importantly, they have also been able to transplant the norms of 1976 in to the time period to a great enough degree to make it feel less alien.

We have talked in class about how the 19th century society has had unwanted effects on Dana and Kevin, and these are obviously present in the scene described above. However, it is also clear that there are aspects of the 1970's that they have brought and maintained in the 1810's, which have allowed them to feel more at home there. This becomes especially clear in Kevin when he mentions that he was helping southern slaves escape to the north. He becomes agitated as he says this, and remarks that he isn't used to having people understand why he would do it. What this shows is that, although Kevin has adapted to living in a new society, he has only changed to a limited degree.

This is how Kevin was able to feel at home at the Weylin house. Although he wasn't living there when he was doing it, he must have associated it with his helping slaves to escape, because, as he was talking about the Weylin house to Dana, it led directly to him talking about helping runaways. He could only feel at home where he had spent considerable time and had demonstrated his 1976 morality most clearly.

This idea also applies to Dana. She felt at home at the Weylin house, where she had tried her best to apply her morality to other slaves, helping them where she could. This appears to be how Butler defines where her characters feel at home, and it shows that as much as Dana and Kevin change as they are in the 19th century, they still remain a product of their own time.

The Portrayal of Death

Step one in writing an anti-war novel is to remove any aspect of glory that one can associate with war. One of the most glorious things a soldier can do is die for the cause, so naturally, Kurt Vonnegut had to write Slaughterhouse-Five without any inkling that death was for a cause.

He does this in several ways, the first of which is by removing all cause from the war. There are only three characters in the whole book who appear to have any sense of what the war is about, and only two of them were shown in the war. Campbell, who is the least objectionable Nazi I've ever imagined could be in a book, and poor old Edgar Derby are the two men fighting for a cause. Both of them, however, are overshadowed completely by the senseless bombing that came right after their speeches, leaving the reader with the feeling of, "[So it goes, but] What was all that about?". Vonnegut further makes Derby's patriotism seem pointless by emphasizing at every possible opportunity that he will be shot for stealing a teapot in the ruins of Dresden [so it goes].

The second way Vonnegut removes the glory of death is in the line, "So it goes". This, of course, relates to the Tralfamadorian view of time that nothing can be changed; things that happen have happened and will always happen. This idea takes the glory not only out of death, but out of just about everything. There are no causes one can work towards, as the future is just as unchangeable as the past, and there is no death, because there are still plenty of moments the dead were alive. However, this is not the only way the repeated line removes glory from death. Vonnegut repeats it endlessly, throws it at everything regardless of the tragedy involved, even applying it to the death of bubbles in water [so it goes]. What this does is immunizes the reader to death, making sure we know every time there is one, and ensuring that we get not only used to it, but irritated with it, jovially thinking when we read about something that relates slightly to death, "oh boy, here it comes", and sure enough, there is meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. So it goes. The result is that we realize how common death really is and how little we are affected by it, just as Vonnegut appears to be under-sensitized to the deaths of over 100,000 people in Dresden. So it goes. In the light of this, one soldier laying down his life for his country seems rather insignificant. So it goes, and goes, and goes...

Finally, death is just violet light and humming, according to Billy Pilgrim. Sounds peaceful, and rather inglorious, doesn't it? So that goes too. If this idea were widely accepted, I'm sure tissue companies would go bankrupt and expire, as crying at funerals would be greatly reduced. So it goes. They might also cut down on the whole 21 gun salute thing for dead soldiers; it might disturb the humming, or even turn the light green or some other ghastly shade.