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.