Looking back at the beginning of this class and then end, nothing has changed. I’m essentially a stone when it comes to everything and refuse to do anything I don’t explicitly want to. Luckily for my grades, I enjoy reading. My favorite part of this class was reading Cat’s Cradle. Did I like it? Eh. As for the blogs, I think I could have gotten more out of them if I had worked better.

I’m not sure what the point of English 1000 is. I’m fairly sure I didn’t learn anything new, and I don’t see how anyone else could have. English isn’t exactly something you can pick up and master in a semester. Seriously, the only advice I think I got was to work harder, and the heck if I’ll ever do that. I work hard at what I want, and this is not one of the things I want.

As for the papers, I learned that I can spit out a seven paper in one night if I sleep a half hour for every hour. I think that might come in handy later on, but that was actually a student who gave me that word of advice.

I also learned that I am not a fan of writing, which up until now, I was never quite opposed to. That doesn’t seem that bad though. Some people are good at it, some aren’t. Come to think of it, good is in the context. My favorite poem is Buffalo Bill’s by Cummings, yet it has no punctuation and probably would get an F if anyone else had published it. Maybe my writing style just needs the right context.

Thesis

Yay for not giving a word limit!

Although it is difficult to point out a single problem arising form elitism, ignorance, imperialism, and hatred are all major problems that can be attributed in parts to elitism.

Tuesday April 6- Have a thesis

Wednesday April 7- Have 2 pages of first draft

Thursday April 8- Have 5 sources by Midnight. Go to library, check databases, and ask friends about their sources.

Friday April 9- Have 5 pages of first draft

Saturday April 10th- Have 8 pages of first draft

Monday April 12th- Have 10 Sources

Thursday  April 15th- Finished Revisions of First Draft

Sunday April 18th- Finished Revisions on Second Draft

Monday April 19th- Check to make sure everything’s going well. Reassess plan to see if there needs to be more.

Blog 10

This assignment was as fun as running my head through a meat grinder. I was not happy that I accidentally wrote an entire paper about a theme. I then wrote another paper from scratch. Essentially, this ended up being two assignments for me. The peer review thing didn’t seem very helpful, and neither did Instructor Sullivan’s comments, mostly because all she wrote was that I needed to rewrite my paper from scratch. I also thought this was a terrible topic to do a research paper on due to the lack of peer reviews about Cat’s Cradle. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack, except there wasn’t actually a needle.

So, you could say this paper went worse than the first one. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Sullivan will find my opening funny enough to deserve an A. I think that once again, I’ll have to focus on my organization a lot, actually edit my paper thoroughly, and put in a lot more effort for my next paper. Maybe doing some research over Spring Break will prepare me.

My strategy for this paper on the second submission was first to figure out what the difference was between and issue and a theme. Once I figured it out, I chose the issue Sullivan liked to talk about most in class. Then I pretty much just reread the book in parts where I remembered them discussing my issue. Then I marked the pages I though were most relevant and narrowed it down to three major centers for my paper. I then organized my quotes according to those three point and wrote them down and made paragraphs out of them. I connected them loosely with a bunch of transitions, rewrote my thesis, and made a conclusion. Before all this, I made up an anecdote and loosely connected it to my top as an attention grabber.

I haven’t really read what assignment three is about, but I think I remember hearing it’s just an expansion of this paper to anything covered in Cat’s Cradle. I better come up with a topic. If I can, I’ll recycle my original paper as much as I can seeing as I never turned it in for credit. Who knows, if i get lucky I’ll get struck by lightning the day it’s due and Sullivan will cut me some slack.

I think that the thing I screwed up most in this paper was a mixture of me ranting and a lack of supportive detail. I hardly used my source and mostly just raved about how elitism made us look like idiots without completely connecting them to my thesis. I suppose I’ll also have to spend more time in the library because apparently two days are not enough to find a single book with Kurt Vonnegut in it, or Cat’s Cradle for that matter. Maybe now that almost everyone has their sources, it might be easier for me find a book or two on the subject. Well, we’ll see I guess.

Blog 9

The purpose of this essay is to convince people that Cat’s Cradle should be considered a piece of fiction rather than Sci-Fi. It uses various facts to back this up, such as quotes of Vonnegut about how he already knew that Ice Nine was physically impossible, and therefore isn’t a very scientific thing. He also argues that Vonnegut’s other books are strongly morally oriented and that in context it makes more sense that he meant it as fiction. Personally, I don’t care and think it should be Sci-Fi and I can make an argument for it, but it really doesn’t matter that much to me.

The audience is academics who have read Cat’s Cradle. This is apparent in the fact that it’s a peer reviewed essay in a book about American literature. Also, the way he talks about Cat’s Cradle, it is apparent that he assumed you read it. He does tell the ending in it, and he doesn’t explain anything in the book. That and I found it in an academic database of peer reviewed essays, so either they lied to me and I want my money back, or I’m right.

The genre is a harder thing to pin point. It isn’t exactly a critical essay, but more of a persuasive essay. He is repeatedly trying to prove his point that Cat’s Cradle is fiction in not Sci-Fi. He does analyze it, but his analysis seems like he has an opinion to push rather than 100% a fact to prove and he uses strangely bias words. Personally, I believe you can argue either way that it’s either Sci-Fi or Fiction. Also, why is this guy writing a persuasive essay about a book? It’s not really going to effect anything if he proves his point. So either way, you could argue it’s either persuasive of critical, but that would be about as pointless as the article itself, maybe even more so.

The stance is respectful towards Vonnegut, while aggravated at the people who classify it as Sci-Fi. “Vonnegut has been robbed long enough of his poetic mantle by the well meaning but misguided science-fiction addicts and social critics.” To me, that quote shows my point precisely. Notice that Vonnegut was “robbed” of “his mantle.” That seems like respect. And notice they are not Sci-Fi fans but “addicts.” I think this guy took this a little too personally. He also seems to think that Vonnegut was smart enough to catch an idea that H.G. Wells let slip through his fingers. Come to think of it, Vonnegut is the only person in the paper that this writer actually seems to like. Even the scientist who told Wells the idea was just there for “entertainment.”

The media in this case is a digital PDF file, although I assume it was originally intended as an essay in a magazine or book. The database I found it in says it was in the 13th volume of something on American literature and it was written in 1975. THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE INTERNET IN THOSE DAYS. So they put it on paper, which apparently people once read before the advent of e-books and blogs.

The Source and Implications of Ice Nine

Let me start this blog out by saying (and to stress this, I will use caps lock without hesitation) THERE ARE NO ARTICLES RELATING TO ANYTHING WE TALKED ABOUT IN ANY DATABASE. Either every database at the library sucks, or no one writes about Cat’s Cradle’s themes. So instead, I chose the closest thing any of the databases had to something relating to a theme.

I think it’s entertaining how he learned about Ice Nine from a Russian scientist when we at war with Russia.  This articles seems to be making the argument that Ice Nine should be viewed as a moral tool rather than an element to categorize it into science fiction because Vonnegut already knew that Ice Nine was impossible when he wrote it, but he thought it would be a useful part of a plot. I think it’s awesome that he stole the idea from something a guy recommended to H.G. Wells (a great man once said “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”).

Personally, I find it funny that this author uses the bible as a reference to something that’s not fiction (note: I’m not dissing the religion, I just think that there are more factually based books he could have chosen). As for Ice Nine representing the “Evil” of Frost’s poem, that’s an interesting view.

His final arguement seems to be that since Vonnegut says he knew Ice Nine couldn’t be real, it should be accepted that he intended it as fiction and not sci-fi.

Annotations

I really had no opinion of the article seeing as it was just a piece criticism of a book to me. Personally, I think the analysis goes much deeper than Vonnegut intended. Freud’s theories aren’t exactly 100% factual. But here is roughly the gist of the article:

Egotism plays a dangerous, central roll in Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Egotism in the Freudian sense refers to reason. Because the the ego is suffering for individuals in this book, it causes the ego to not be effected by feelings, leading to purely logic driven thoughts that end destructively. Because people with this deficiency are given something that can destroy the world, it is therefore inevitable that they will.

It could even be said that others recognize the danger they’re in. The secretary says “You scientists think too much.” (31) Others also share similar feelings when they recognize Hoeniker for what he was as a threat.

To further that Hoeniker was purely logic driven, they say that he didn’t want anything material. They said his kids might not even be his (28). He didn’t remember anything about his dead wife, and he barely thought about his kids.

The writer of this papers claims that the Hoeniker children represent the psyche: Frank the ego, Newt the id, and Angela the superego. The writers says that Frank abandoning the others is symbolic of the ego abandoning the others in Felix. Although Angela plays the group conscious in various parts, I think that she isn’t as unlike her siblings as this other explains. After all, she gave the Ice-9 to the government. She married an abusive husband. She makes plenty of mistakes. Newt does act purely on desire, he attempts to do good where he can. Angela has a high opinion of Felix who clearly caused the end of the world, so how is she a good conscious as this writer says?

Newt’s description as the id, the pleasure seeking roll, seems slightly more justified as he runs off with a Ukranian midget, but if he really was just seeking pleasure, why didn’t he just sell the Ice-9? Instead, someone had to steal it from him (if my memory is correct).

Franks description is also somwhat justified as the ego because all he wanted was “to receive the honors and creature comforts while escaping human responsibilities.” Also, he didn’t want to marry Mona. But that could also have come from other reasons. For instance, he says he has another girl he wants to be with. That doesn’t sound like the ego to me. Angela didn’t want to become president. Jonah didn’t really even want to become president. No one wanted to become president!

When it goes into detail about Mona, I further disagree. It says that she is the perfect embodiment of the psyche working in harmony. SHE KILLS HERSELF. The other “fragmented” ones continue living pretty well under the circumstances.

All in all, I think that if this was a pop Freudian book, it has certain flaws to it.

Vonnegut’s Stance on Everything

What’s Vonnegut’s stance on life, marriage, and everything else? He thinks it’s meaningless. Religion? Same thing. Throughout the book, he uses the analogy of a cat’s cradle having neither cat nor cradle to point out that everything is pointless, meaningless, nonsense. At one point, he has Castle throw Newt’s painting of “meaninglessness” off a waterf.all to further his point that everything is meaningless, including meaninglessness. In the middle of the book, it talks about how San Lorenzo was a crappy place and how McCabe and Bokonon had failed to elevate it from its crappiness. Bokonism itself is somewhat pointless because the first lines of the books are about how everything in the books are nothing but shameless lies. Even the legends in it are lies. But lying is pointless as well because the legend he made up about the boat sailing at the end of the world comes true in the end. In the end, after everyone is dead, Jonah is asked if he could, would he bring back any of the people who had died, and he is unable to come up with a response. The religion that was supposed to have brought everyone in San Lorenzo happiness ended up leading them all to mass suicide under Bokonon. McCabe himself commit suicide due to the hardship of trying to be the dictator required for his role. As for manners, pointless as well because they lead to the ambassador and his wife not reacting quickly enough to save themselves. What about marriage? Angela bought her marriage with a rich guy because she gave him Ice 9. He then abused her and cheated on her. Newt’s love life was similar; his girlfriend left him and stole the Ice 9, giving it to the Russians, which in the end didn’t matter because the Ice 9 Frank gave to “Papa” was what ended up ending the world. After the end of the world, all Jonah’s emotions were rendered pointless because the girl he “loves” ends up killing herself and the people he disliked with a passion end up being the one’s he lives with. All these things are just to further the point that every single thing that happens is completely pointless, and even it being pointless is just another example of pointlessness. If I were to extrapolate from this argument, I might be so bold as to say this blog is meaningless as well, but I’m not that bold.

Writing Process

For this writing process, I started at 3:00 am with a frappuccino and a Pepsi commercial. The previous day I watched the commercial repeatedly, and by repeatedly I mean once, and digested it in my head. First, an intro was necessary. Throw in a cool title and an opening paragraph that vaguely introduced the paper and save the editing of that for some other day. Now I was ready to write the body.

I broke it down, brick by brick, and then I threw the bricks into the wheelbarrow that is Microsoft Word. These brick, of course, were the elements of the commercial. Then, I added in my commentary on the elements, a mortar for my new brick building, if you would. Last, throw in the conclusion that sums up everything. At this point, I had a shitty first draft. I scanned it for typos, edited the grammar, and like every other kid in the class, submitted my shitty first draft as a rough draft. Seeing as the real estate market sucks, or in this case, there was no stiff competition, I could easily get away with such a worthless submission.

At this point, I was ready to edit the hell out of it. Grammar mistakes? Bam. Gone. Typos? Bam. Gone. This was the point to cut out all the bull crap that was in the rough draft that I only added as padding to get five pages. Suddenly, my paper was smaller. A problem, I sensed, but it was one that could be solved by redigesting the commercial and spewing out every detail that was visible. Every possible thing that could be relevant was considered, and then it was placed into the context of the paper. That was then edited to have more speculation, which was then edited to only contain facts that supported a conclusion about why each detail was present. Finally, I brushed up the beginning and ending to be more… formal, yet enticing.

After I submitted the first submission, I got feedback. Apparently, I dropped the ball when it came to details and organization, and some parts were possibly offensive to the audience. Bam! Offensiveness lowered. Bam! More details. Ba… hm.. organization… I regrouped everything that was related to each other together as best as I could, and this meant redoing a lot of the opening and transition sentences to paragraphs to make sure they actually flowed smoothly. This was the hardest, most annoying part of the paper. Finally, I had my paper. It was my second submission. So now you may ask “Are you done?” Ha! Only in a sense. Although my paper is done and my grade is finalized, that paper was far from done. It was still crap. Almost all papers are crap. That’s because almost no paper is completely done. The writing process continues, and each time, you will notice something wrong with your paper that you didn’t notice before. Maybe you had a typo. Maybe it was a grammar mistake. Maybe you want to rewrite it based on a new view of your audience. The process never ends.

Commercial: Media

The media of this article is digital video (either television or youtube). The way this effects the commercial is that they can cut together images, video, and music to draw the associations of cool to the Pepsi soda. Using this subliminal bombardment to the two most used senses, they don’t need to say anything, yet they can still effectively draw the associations they want. If this had been on a magazine it could probably only do one picture of the surfers on the beach with a limited amount of text, effectively making it much harder to cram all the excitement into a page. In plain English, this would never have even worked as pure text. As pure audio, it would have been harder to connect it to surfing and they would have had to explain how the Pepsi was somehow connected.

By placing this digital video in the middle of a tv show, it ensures that it is seen, and can’t be completely ignore by the audience. As just a video on youtube, it’s hardly a commonly viewed video because it isn’t forced and no one wants to see it.