On repeat

"The sexual idea or value that I pursue in loving you cannot be possessed by possessing you: you are merely the medium through which it manifests itself to me. It transcends you. I want you, but you are not what I want."

Objects with Strong Symbolic Undertones

When thinking about what object to write about on my final essay, I started thinking of objects with deeper meanings. How can a can of soup epitomize an artistic movement? How can an apple pie portray the values of a nation? How can a website characterize a generation? In our society, everyday objects gain deeper meaning based on their connotation.

As i thought of these objects, I found a reoccurring theme of celebration. Confetti is thrown on new years, beads are used in Mardi Gras, balloons are the perfect party decoration and great for sending your congratulations and cake is a sweet treat for birthdays and wedding alike. However, out of all of the objects pertaining to celebration, I find fireworks to be the most iconic. Whether it be the Fourth of July, New years, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games or the Superbowl halftime, fireworks not only captivate but dazzle audiences.

Fireworks, which were invented in 7th century china, come in all types: colorful, loud, big, small, bright, dull, smiley faces and stars . The brilliant colors in fireworks come from the burning metal compounds. vivid strontium forms a vivid red, calcium burns orange, sodium burns yellow, barium burns green, copper burns blue, cesium burns indigo, potassium/rubidium burn violet and iron burns gold. But the mechanics is not what makes them special. It is their symbolic meaning and history that sets them apart from party favors like balloons or cake.

In the novel, Kafka Was the Rage - A Greenwich Village Memoir, books have a strong symbolic undertone (like fireworks on the 4th of July). After World War II there was an obsession with the immersion of literature by the people of Greenwich Village. Books were so revered, "To open a bookshop is one of the persistent romances, like living off the land or sailing around the world." (page 28) When choosing an object for my research paper, it is vital to pick one with the same strength of symbolic undertones. Rubber ducks symbolize childhood and innocence and fireworks symbolize freedom, independence, nationality and pride. By choosing an object with deep societal meaning, I will not only have much more to write about, but it will make my essay more interesting and meaningful.

Kafka Was the Rage- A Greenwhich Village Memoir

Anatole Broyard’s novel Kafka Was the Rage- A Greenwich Village Memoir has a thought-provoking religious undertone. Sex is a central subject in the book, and just as soon as this topic is aroused religion is included. “ I was the only son of a Catholic family from the French Quarter in New Orleans, and no one is so sexually demented as the French bourgeoisie especially when you add a colonial twist” (pg. 9). I’m catholic and I would have thought that Catholics in the 1940’s would be much more firm in their religious convictions than what this statement suggests. This continues throughout the book. In the second part of the book on page 93, the topic of evangelical elements and redemption are considered and the author makes this comment “He was a type that was fairly common at the time but that seems to have gone out of style.” This is noteworthy because it seems that atheism has grown in the recent 10-12 years and that the percentage of atheists in the 1940s would be extremely low, and maybe look down upon. Furthermore author continually shows curiosity in Judaism. I think this book converses about many different universal and timeless topics.

This was just one stimulating statement that I read. “Education was chic and sexy in those days. It was not yet open to the public” (pg. 14). This was just mentioned on one page in the first part of the book but it really stood out to me. Sometimes I feel that education is open to the public but is still separated. Some students are able to receive a wonderful education because of their social status or the regions in which they live in, where as others are stuck in schools that are falling apart and aren’t able to receive the best education possible. I am not talking about college but about K-12, most importantly high school. In my high school I was only able to take 3 AP classes that was all that was offered. We did not have IB or whatever else there is. I know students who go to college with over 25 credits. I would love to have at least 8. My school was not a horrible school; but it did lack in areas because I am from a very small rural town. Subsequently I think that some high school and grade schools are more exclusive and give more opportunities to students based on area and sometimes income therefore it could be parallel to Broyard’s comment.

Hipsterism...what does it mean?

I loved reading this book because it was so interesting and easy to relate to. The idea that stuck out to me the most was the idea of being a part of a counterculture. Personally, I have been called a hipster more than a couple of times in my life. Often because I dress differently and listen to "hipster" music. Either way I don't know how to respond to that accusation. Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not, but the definition is so unclear, and for some reason everyone looks down upon hipsters. I suppose it is because people think hipsters are trying so hard to be something different. I saw the same conflicting emotions from the main character in the book. He wanted to be a part of the underground scene in New York for the sole reason that he wanted to be different. In the second half of the book he went so far as to brag about himself to his new friends, just so he would fit in. I feel he did that because he liked the fact that it was exclusive and different. It allowed him to morph himself into that special, almost unobtainable sense of belonging. I think that's why people liked being in that community; it made them feel better and more interesting than their old self. This new sense of self is not appreciated by his parents, which is seen in the scene where Anatole's ex-girlfriend comes to his home. I think that "normal" people don't like the newness of that counterculture he was a part of. Maybe that is the reason why hipsters and the counterculture in the book aren't accepted is because they are taken as a threat to the normal way of life. They view themselves as above the majority of people because they are an exclusive minority, constantly trying to set themselves apart.

Ironic as it is, the minority grows as more and more people try to set themselves apart, thinking that they don't want to be a part of the majority of people. However, they try to fit in and change themselves and the process just becomes more and more ironic. This may also be another reason why the majority of people dislike countercultures. It can be seen with the hippies, the counterculture in the book, and hipsters today. These abstract people are seen as a threat to the normal way of life.

When Real Life Meets Picture Books

Many children's books are a lot of fun to read, but have almost nothing to do with the real world. For example, Dr. Seuss's books have little grounding in reality. What on earth is a Star-Bellied Sneetch? And obviously cats can't talk and will not come knocking on your door. Many popular children's books are about things like puppies chasing lost balls and ducks crossing the street. These books are more realistic, but still don't tie in to real world problems.

And what's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. Those kinds of children's books can be a lot of fun to read, and children can learn very basic morals from them : You shouldn't steal other people's things, you shouldn't make a mess that you can't clean up (what a great life lesson!), etc. Books that aren't grounded in any kind of reality can have worthwhile lessons as well.

But what really interests me are children's books that aren't fantasy, that address real-world types of problems. I don't mean like the Lorax, which addresses the real problem of saving the environment, but in a fantastical context. The book I read and wrote an analysis of this week was very grounded in the real world, which makes the ideas interesting for both children and adults. The book is called Zoo by Anthony Browne.

Zoo is fascinating because it's very simply about a boy's trip to the zoo with his family. To adults, it should be very clear what the book's morals are - basically, that humans treat animals in zoos badly - but to a child, these ideas probably seem much more subtle. The book's goal is to make kids more aware of a semi-controversial real-life issue : are zoos good for animals? Or do they do more harm than good? The book does this with very serious and sometimes slightly sad illustrations of animals in cages, mixed with more cartoonish images of people at the zoo staring at them, making fun of them, etc.

One thing that really made me sad was the way the young narrator mentioned that the polar bear at the zoo was pacing back and forth all day. This, to me, is a pretty clear sign that zoos aren't always good for animals, and I think Browne feels the same way. Many animals at zoos, like bears, wolves, and especially big cats, actually pace so much that they create worn out paths or trails in their enclosures. I think this is a sign that in captivity, these animals start to lose their mind a little. Being locked up really doesn't seem healthy for their mental states.

But I really do like that this book's morals involve real life. I'm not saying that people should write children's books about the Holocaust, but I do think it's important that children read both fantasy-type books and books about things in the real world, so that they grow up with a sense of what's going on around them. The question really comes down to how old children should be when books begin to introduce them to "real world" ideas, and what kinds of topics are just too serious for picture books.

A decline in the quality of children's books

We might have been reading children's books these past couple of weeks, but I've been reading children's books since the beginning of the school year. I've been tutoring a young kindergartner in reading and writing. It might seem pointless because she's only in kindergarten and she's not a native speaker. But in order to teach her to read, I've been reading many children's books to her aloud. One thing I've noticed is that the quality of children's books has been declining.

Back when I was little, children's books actually had stories. They were filled with a moral to the story or at least something poignant like a child finding her lost dog. But after reading children's books that are coming out recently, I've noticed that children's books today are not like that at all. They are more simple in plot with practically no meaning or life lesson. And they focus more on the visuals. Which might be a good thing, but the pictures tend to be simple, or disturbing. One children's book I read was called "Algernon Graeves is Scary Enough". The story is basically about a boy trying to find the perfect costume. Each page has the same lines: Algernon Graeves isn't scary enough! Paired with the words are disturbing pictures of ghosts, vampires, spiders, and such that grossed me out. But the girl I was tutoring simply smiled and read the book without much thought, and grabbed the next book. If I read her books like Dr. Seuss's "Oh the places we'll go", which actually have lots of meaning, she'll get bored.

This trend doesn't seem to be just in children's books though. T.V shows and music for kids are becoming less about learning lessons and more about mindless fun. I always hear people say "kids these days are becoming more and more twisted as they come". Could this be because our society is feeding kids with mindless books and media? When I was little, I would read stories about family, friendships, and love. Now the children's books I read are all focused on how some pictures change color and how some sparkle and some don't.

Visual Analysis or Summary?

When I first chose my children’s book, I thought it would be impossible to pull enough meaning out of the illustrations to write a whole paper. I flipped through Jamberry, one of my childhood favorites, and saw these simple and childish drawings of a boy and a bear frolicking through a land of berries. I didn’t think there was any way that the illustrator incorporated any hidden messages into his work.

It is extremely interesting to me that while I was looking for these hidden messages, the analysis was really right in front of me. I thought I was just giving a summary of the book, when I was actually analyzing the illustrations. It was hard for me to realize this because as a child I saw Jamberry as a story, but in reality the text does not tell a story at all, and this is where the analysis comes in.

While there are artistic techniques used in the illustrations such as color and physical space, the main focus is on the distance and space between the text and the illustrations. Because I was familiar with this story and as a child had it read to me, I saw the text and illustrations as one. But when I read the text on its own, I began to see that I was actually doing a visual analysis the whole time.

At the beginning I had such difficulty with this assignment because I couldn’t pinpoint many specific artistic components that tell a different message. However, I came to find that you don’t have to be an artist in order to do visual analysis. We visually analyze things everyday and that enhances our experiences. It is fascinating to think that as a child I was able to see the images in Jamberry as the narrative without putting any extra thought into doing so. Because the visual analysis paper is a college writing assignment, just that aspect can overwhelm you and block you from seeing that you actually know what you’re doing. Sometimes when you take a step back and think about what you are writing, your ideas may not be as obvious to others as you think they are, and what you thought was summary isn’t actually summary at all.