Future Literate Me

  It's hard to know what the future holds, especially while in a state as impermanent as high school, but it is hard to imagine a reality where I ever stop reading. While describing future literary me, it is difficult to get into specifics because at this point I truly have no clue (definitely less of a clue than I should) what the next stage in my life will be, though hopefully I will have more facial hair and be around ten to fifteen pounds heavier. I suspect to continue building relationships, facing problems, and experiencing moments of indescribable joy, and I know that through all of this I will have books as a guide, as something to relate to, something to talk about, and something to pass the time. Literature has always served all of these purposes for me to the point where I can now easily trace back specific times in my life through the books I was reading at the time, because the things experienced in the books become moments in my life as I live them vicariously through the characters, becoming something that may as well have actually happened to me. I am excited to experience the rest of my life and I am excited to see what new books become important to me. Books have always been a very large part of my life and I suspect that they always will be.

Blog #7, The Films of David Lynch

  I will never forget the opening sequence of film director David Lynch's 1986 critically acclaimed masterpiece, Blue Velvet. The movie opens with a series of images that display a seemingly perfect suburban paradise; blue sky's, green lawns, white picket fences, smiles and waves from friendly neighbors. This montage is followed by a  scene in which mans garden hose tangles around a shrub, snapping and propelling itself at his spine leaving him paralyzed from the neck down as the water sprays over the lawn and the camera pans underground uncovering a nest of disgusting insects. The silence is overtaken by a dissonant buzzing as the camera continues to zoom in on the nest more and more until the insects cover the entire frame. This scene is representative of Lynch's catalog as a whole (as sprawling and diverse as his catalog is), because it clearly depicts the major themes that permeate through his work; nothing is truly perfect anywhere, no matter how much people try to cover up the darkness that is inevitably there. Lynch uses suburban America as a backdrop for several of his works, including his short lived but extremely beloved television show Twin Peaks and his mind-bending surrealist noir film Mulholland Drive, because it perfectly juxtaposes with the nightmares he is so great at creating, making them even more terrifying staying with you for weeks after you see them, while proving his point about the purposeful obliviousness of so many people to the horrors that exist right under their noses. Lynch's works have a knowing campyness to them, reminiscent of television shows like Andy of Mayberry, or Leave It to Beaver, creating an exaggerated version of suburbia that works in contrast with very disturbing surreal material, giving the films a very distinct aesthetic. The hyper-stylized atmosphere surprisingly doesn't get in the way of emotional connections with the characters, the plot, or a sense of humor. His movies are challenging and experimental without being pretentious. In my opinion David Lynch is an artist who exists on the level of Picasso because while many of his influences can be traced to specific things, the finished product is indescribable and seems to come from nowhere, and like Picasso his works only increase in value after repeated viewings, and somehow make you feel like you are viewing the work on multiple planes at the same time.

Positive Education Experience

  Since I've always liked to read, English class has never been too hard for me, and to be honest over the years it's given me room to slack off and work below my full potential. I hate to admit that because I've disappointed countless teachers whom I truly do care about, giving late or rushed work and little input to class discussions while they knew I should be excelling. Therefore one of my most positive experiences in education was seventh grade English with Mr. Coleman, a teacher who I developed a close relationship with because he not only didn't care about my lax effort in his class, he was just as lazy as I was, and we just so happened to share a love for the work of Kurt Vonnegut.

  Oh, how the other students would complain about Mr. Coleman! But they just didn't understand, they didn't pay enough attention to see that if they just listened closely to his gentle, conversational ramblings they would learn more from him than any other English teacher. My peers weren't ready to accept a lesson style that wasn't totally focused around preparing for a test, but was more concerned with betterment of the students minds. Sure I can see how they might be annoyed by the lack of grades in the book at the end of every quarter, but what kind of twelve year old has the gumption to complain about less work, especially when what we got instead were funny, hazy stories that taught us lessons vaguely relating back to the books we read in class. I just remember how happy I was when he let me borrow a copy of a signed book of Vonnegut short stories that he received at one of the last book readings Vonnegut did before his death.

  Mr. Coleman mysteriously disappeared midway through the year (I suspect due to parent complaints, but I can't be sure) leaving me devastated. They replaced him with a twenty-something student teacher who couldn't fill his shoes no matter how hard she tried. She even assigned us to read "Harrison Bergeron," but no one could never replace the gentle, sad face of Mr. Coleman. I wish I could find him and tell him how much that year of class meant to me but he no longer works at the Middle School. He showed me the power kindness and a shared love for something can have on a relationship between two people, regardless of age.

What I Would Change About Public School

  I feel so sorry for the poor soul who must take on the task of sitting next to me in chemistry class. I tap my fingers, shake my legs, bang my head against my desk, and make weird noises under my breath which seem to rise out of my stomach like my body is infested with invisible spirits that I have no control over. I become a completely different person, and this person happens to be SO annoying, because I am SO bored. And its not just chemistry, the same thing has happened to me in basically every science or math class I've taken since middle school, and unsurprisingly my grades in those classes have been, ummmmm... let's just say substandard.
  I know I'm not the only kid who has this problem and I think the way to hold hyperactive students attention for more than two seconds is hands on activity. The times I notice myself picking up information in these classes is during the experiments, where I am actually seeing what I'm supposed to be learning first hand. It gets me out of my desk and allows me to move around keeping me in a much more productive state of mind than the catatonic trance I usually feel while staring at a board with my eyes out of focus for ninety minutes.
  Finding ways to work more hands activities into the curriculum would make class more enjoyable, which by my experience means it would make it much easier to learn.

Blog #4: La Vie

Picasso's La Vie

  Picasso's La Vie, painted in 1903 during his blue period, depicts a man with his lover in his arms, in a confrontation with a woman holding a child.
  I interpret the painting as a woman catching her husband and father of her child. with another woman. The older woman is looking disdainfully at a man about her age in the embrace of a young girl. It seems like the younger woman is latching on to the man, frightened, looking for protection from an understandably angry wife. Also there are clear parallels between the embrace of the mother and daughter on the right, and that of the lovers on the left, both showing an adult holding a younger, innocent looking person. Also they are arranged symmetrically, taking up the same amount of space on each side. This may be Picasso's way of showing that the man has abandoned his family, giving his mistress the care he should be giving to his child. It also may show how much the woman relies on the man, like a child to their mother. While the composition of the two sides are similar there is a strong color contrast between the stark white nudity of the two on the left, and the dark cloak on the right side. This could represent the man moving away from the conservative values of a traditional family life, represented by the fully clothed wife, to a new life with his young lover, represented by their nudity.

Blog #3

   In my twisted utopia where censorship doesn't exist and graphic novels get the respect they deserve, all high schools would be required to teach surrealist genius Charles Burns' magnum opus, Black Hole. This of course will never happen on account of the sex, drugs, violence and indescribable grotesque dreamscapes that are not only written on paper, but shown to you in beautiful, painstaking detail by a master of his craft. 

   Black Hole was started by Burns in 1995 and took ten years to finish, resulting in a beautiful, intricate and sensitive work that takes place in the mid-1970's and tells the story of a Washington state high school during the outbreak of "the Bug," a sexually transmitted disease that physically mutates its carriers. The mutations can be easily hidden, like a small tail, or nightmarish, like say... a second mouth that grows on your neck and has a mind of its own. Many of the victims are exiled from society, leaving home to live in a makeshift campgrounds in the woods, where some of their more empathetic friends bring them food and living supplies. Burns works in all black and white and includes passages re-creating some of the characters nightmares, creating a unique point of view for each character, showing their individual frustrations, fears and desires.

   Shown mostly through the eyes of four characters (Keith, Eliza, Rob, and Chris) the story works as a metaphor for both the overwhelmingly rapid physical changes of a teenager and the social alienation that effects so many high school students, focusing on a struggle for social acceptance, and desire to hold on to a normal teenage life as they face the reality that the disease is something they'll never be able to run away from. 

Kind of hard to hear interview with Charles Burns

Kyle, Entry #2

  On one of the first track practices of the year after finishing my workout I looked on as my friend Kyle collapsed to the ground. The coaches called an ambulance and got the rest of the team inside finishing practice early. We left thinking Kyle had an ordinary seizure and would be okay. Later that weekend my friend Ryan told me Kyle had a heart attack and was in critical condition and asked if me and a few other members of the track team were willing to go visit him and his family. 

  That Sunday Ryan,Matt, Mike and I drove to Westchester Hospital and entered the waiting room. The place was filled wall to wall with Kyles relatives, some of the nicest people I've ever met, seeming noticeably shaken but still optimistic. In the room Kyle was still unconscious and his mother was next to him playing him music from his iPod. She told us the Doctor expected a slow but full recovery. We went back outside, signed a book of get well notes and tried to alleviate the tension in the room with small talk about the basketball game on the TV, or some of our best memories of Kyle, then left to make room for a group of girls holding balloons and an oversized get well card, again thinking everything would be okay.

  The next morning I walked into school and a girl who was a close friend of Kyle's told me through tears and gasps that all members of the track team were to go to the auditorium. I knew what had happened. I walked to the auditorium slowly, telling myself it could be something else, but the pit in my stomach kept growing and I was already starting to cry. I was able to hold back my tears until after the announcement when the track Coach brought me in for a hug and told me it would be okay. In that moment, seeing a man as strong as Coach Bartlett brought to tears made me face reality. Everything rushed to the surface, Kyle, someone I had known for years, played baseball with, rode the bus with, went swimming with, joked with, just seen the day before, being told he was going to be alright was gone. One of the most genuinely kind people I have ever known was gone.

  The days and weeks after Kyle's death were hard to say the least, but when I look back at them now they aren't characterized by my grief or the grief of his friends. What I remember most are the actions made by the community to make sure nobody had to go through this alone. People were brought together in remembrance by memorial services and group therapy sessions. I talked to people I barely knew like I had known them my whole life. I reached out to others and others reached out to me. 

 This experience taught me the value of a strong community, and the importance of not being afraid to open up to others when you need help. Kyle was a friend to everyone who knew him, and we should all make Kyle live on by trying our best to act a little bit more like him.

 

First Literary Experience

  From a young age literature has been an important part of my life. Having an English teacher for a mom and a dad who sometimes reads three or four books at a time, a love for literature runs in my family. Naturally, both of my parents understood how valuable reading to your child can be, not only for aiding childhood development and creativity, but as an outlet for building close relationships and creating beautiful moments that strengthen the bond between parents and their children .
  Almost every night my mom would read a story to me and my sister as we fell asleep resting our heads on either shoulder. Sometimes the three of us would play a game where each of us would add one sentence to a story, creating it as we go. The collaboration created a surreal collage of ideas, my sister's utopian fairy-filled fantasy's, me ruining them with superhero battles and a Michael Bay-like flare for explosions, and my mom somehow holding everything together. These moments are some of my most vivid childhood memories. I fully experienced these stories in panoramic high definition, adding new worlds for my imaginative young mind to play in. I know that doing this created a closeness between me and my mother that was only added to with time and maturity, and laid down the groundwork for my current love of books and of creation.