The Art of Repetition 3/30

Jane Jeong Trenka's "mothers life wrapped itself around [her's] in an echo" (79). But she didn't have to say so for us to see how much their lives really did mimic each other. I started reading this book pausing to write down things which seemed to show up more than once. The note card I used filled up quickly. So I concluded her stories have an intentional repetition. There are many techniques which allow her to have the effect she intends, but the repetition is prime. And even though it can be a very risky technique, one which undermines the readers own capabilities, she uses it to her advantage.

Trenka's thoughts change and grow with the underlying sense of anxiety connecting her actions. She seeks desperately to find herself. The search for a diagnosis of her anxious feelings point to the hope for something beyond her control, something she can blame her anger on. The anxious feeling appears in all instances of her life. Her emotions give depth to her story. In trying to find herself she comes across many instances which help her to reflect. In doing so, she avoided the, "This happened to me, but now it's like this," style of reflection, and found a way to integrate the past with the present.

I found it easiest to focus on Trenka's technique in the two instances in which she comes across Buddhist necklaces. The subject matter is direct and connects to a wide range of pupils in her life. The first time she received a necklace was with her first boyfriend. He had bought her a necklace for christmas with a little buddha figurine, which she instantly had to hide.

"I put the Buddha in a safe place in my dresser, inside a sealed box, two layers of waterproof packing tape wrapped around it to seal in the sin" (66).

It concerned her because she thought she "would surely go to hell" for having it (65). Her concern was deep. It showed how she felt judged by god and by her parents. It showed how she felt judged for having an asian boyfriend. She needed to keep it hidden. It was a sin. Her exile was deep under her skin. In Minnesota, parents wanted their daughters to "date only real Americans." The hiding of the necklace was symbolic of the way she felt about her relationship and how she felt about being asian as a child. Hide it and forget about it.

In the second instance is after meeting her mother for the first time. Her Umma (biological mother) wants to buy her a necklace at an expensive jewelry store. Trenka tries to buy something inexpensive, but knows it would be a sign of disrespect so she picks out a Buddhist symbol. She forgets her Umma is catholic and quickly realizes the mistake she makes. They purchase a cross necklace instead and rush out, forgetting about what had just happened. This innocent act shows just how much Trenka wanted to fit in somewhere. Mistakes were colossal to her. Her Umma forgave her quickly, but she is embarrassed. She doesn't want to mess up the relationship with her Umma!

In trying to figure out why these scenes were chosen, I thought about memory. Trenka's style of writing made me reflect on its purpose (memories) and why we remember the things we do the way we do. Her memories in this piece intertwine. For me, a memory is a reflection of my emotions memory. My body's way of telling its story. Jane seems to be connecting her memories to her feelings. They made her who she is. The memories created a way for her to feel like she had been connected to her mother all along. In the end, the grounded her.

Mothers

I feel like there is so much to write about in The Language of Blood that it is difficult to decide where to begin. The whole story is filled with so many complex relationships: self to parent(s), self to family(s), self to self, self to culture(s), self to government, and so in order to provide a coherent response, I chose one particular passage in the text that can radiate out to touch the rest of the story in terms of its significance and implications.

This passage appears on pages 191-192 and is the scene where Jane is inviting her adopted mother to the funeral she is holding for her birth mother. Jane says,

"It would mean a lot to me if you could come.” She makes some excuses, she’ll have to think about it, Wal-Mart has a sale that day... “Mom, please come. I want you to come. It would mean so much to me.” She says she’s not interested…She is unaffected by my mother’s death; it didn’t happen, she didn’t happen. In my mom’s mind, I don’t come from somewhere else, I don’t have a birth mother. I don’t, I don’t…She has done it again. She can cow me into submission with a single word

This passage is especially significant because it comes near the end of the memoir and is reflective of how far Jane has come in her journey. She has grown up conflicted, with so many questions about both her birth family and her adopted parents—feeling un-whole, caught between American and Korean cultures while truly being part of neither. On reaching adulthood, Jane really claims her birthright and the power to explore her roots by reconnecting with her birth family in Korea. By getting to know her birthmother and other sisters, Jane gets the blood connection she has always longed for, but also comes to see exactly how American she really is. By caring for Umma in her illness, Jane shows her birthmother the ultimate love and filial loyalty. By the time Umma dies, Jane really feels a deep familial connection with her and wants to memorialize her life in America.

While Jane’s journey of reconnecting with her birthmother (though emotional and difficult) is ultimately a personally healing experience, it does nothing to improve her troubled relationship with her adopted mother. As this passage acutely shows, Margaret is not supportive of Jane’s decision to hold a funeral, just as she is unsupportive of Jane’s relationship with Umma as a whole. In fact, and most heartbreakingly for Jane, she refuses to acknowledge Umma’s existence and role in the whole family’s life. Undoubtedly, Margaret’s feels that she is Jane’s only mother because she has raised her—put in the time, resources, and effort to give Jane a life and refuses to see any reason why Jane cannot feel wholly American, like any other child growing up in their community. By denying Jane’s dual heritage, Margaret refuses to truly see Jane and to acknowledge the issues of identity that constantly haunt her. Of course, living in a small Midwestern town, Margaret and Frederick most likely have very little experience with diverse cultures and clearly do not know how or even acknowledge that they need to help their daughters navigate through their experience as Asian-Americans in a predominantly white area.

This silence and stoicism seem to be at the heart of the problems between Jane and her parents. All the time while she grows up, she is bursting with inner conflict, feelings of outsider-ness, questions about the circumstances of her birth, yet her parents create a family space that accepts only silence and values repression of the unpleasant as a strength. In addition, Jane grows up with the belief that she is a consolation child, a stand in for the biological child they could never have and therefore she carries the weight of being a disappointment, a person not truly wanted by either of her families. While her adopted parents feed and clothe and make sure Jane gets a good education, they fail in helping her with her emotional health. With all this bottled up emotion that festers for years and decades, it is no wonder she is ultimately left with a heart wrenching ambivalence dominating her feelings toward her parents.          

Travel blogs

While reading this weeks blogs I found myself constantly thinking about who the audience was for each piece. The Best Guest blog was the one that got me really thinking about this. The voice was so proper, the information was so basic. Lines like "If you don't want to pend time with someone, get a hotel room", made me crack a smile. This was sound advice, sure, but who is the intended audience? Someone who has never been a (good?) houseguest I guess. It almost read like a lecture from a strict and proper mother. This blog was a to-do list, I'm still not exactly sure who the target audience was. AnxietyTowards Flying, on the other hand, had a very clear audience; those with anxiety towards flying. There were several ideas that came up in the interviews that the blogger shared. First was the idea that knowledge will conquer fear, "I wanted to be armed with information." one interviewee says, and this is echoed throughout the blog. I wondered if that's what made the blogger, Brooke, choose these select, very short interviews to put in her blog. It gives her piece a feel of hope, and a positive tone about what can be a very stressful topic to some people. The interviews are informal and make reading this blog feel like no big deal, a very relaxed feel. The voice of Starbucks in Beijing was refreshing, it was relaxed and comical; giving the reader a feel of Christine's (the blogger) personality. The blog seems to aimed towards those looking for familiar places in foreign lands, who want to hear personal experiences. Christine lets the reader in on her past travels, to give herself credibility as one who compares similar places in different countries. She expresses her expertise on the culture of China with phrases like "Blueberry is like THE fruit in Beijing..." letting the curious potential traveler in on the little things they won't find in a travelers guide. She also focuses on the similarities rather than the differences, this adds to the feeling of familiarity this pieces as, it feels like a conversation with a chatty friend. Last, but not least, we have Whitewater Rafting at the Source of the Nile in Uganda. This blog is more along the lines of what I expected of a travel blog. It takes you through an interesting activity in a far away land. I feel that a blog like this one has a wider audience. Those who are interested in travel, in Africa, in whitewater rafting and those who like to read about exciting things. While there was some jargon that exclude some readers (me/other non-rafters), like referencing the "...international whitewater rating system" and class 6 waterfalls, the author sets up these phrases well enough/explains them well enough so that even I feel like a natural born rafter after reading. The short, choppy paragraphs gave me a feel of things constantly moving, of excitement. The blogger put us in the raft. "...I'd glance around and see belligerent white waves bursting all around us." Bursting, wow. That's great imagery, I've never thought of waves as being able to burst before, and that image stays with me after reading this. I also enjoyed the use of dialog. Having some very close friends from Glasgow, the voice of Lee, the guide, seemed very real to me and I enjoyed the attempt to spell out his speech.

Once again, I would never have read any of these blogs if it wasn't for Elmaz. Thank you Elmaz!

I realized the reason I would never read these travel blogs isn't because I don't enjoy travel - I love it! The reason I wouldn't have read these blogs is because they inform readers on a very specialized topics: whitewater rafting, Starbucks in Beijing, staying in someone else's house while traveling, and travel anxiety. I found that what really linked these blogs, other than the fact that they were all about travel, was the fact that they were all about very specific experiences within the experience of travel, being on a river, traveling with kids, anxiety about traveling, and Starbucks overseas.

The whitewater post was informative, creative, and to be frank had me on the edge of my seat. I love rafting and the casual language used in the blog was appealing to me because it seemed like someone was telling a very exciting story. The accent that was conveyed in this blog had me laughing out loud. It was such a great personal touch that added so much to the blog. I felt like the conscious choice for the blogger to write in the guide's accent made the story that much more authentic. I was impressed that the images only added to the writing instead of distracting the reader for his very exciting rafting experience.

"Sprouts on Rout" was very specialized but I did't find the information to be all the informative. I felt like Kristen was restating common information. The fact that it lacked the flashy pictures that could be found in the "Starbucks in Beijing"post or the "Vagabonding" blog was disappointing. However, I feel like the fact that it didn't have flashy pictures wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the blog. I am guessing parents who are interested in reading a blog about traveling with kids is more about parents sympathizing with one another and less about "flash".

"Anxiety Town" gave generalized experiences of a variety of people. I didn't find the language of the blog to be interesting or descriptive enough to lure me into being interested in travel anxiety or sympathize with the experiences of people that suffer from it. The pictures were lacking as well.

I found "Starbucks in Bejing" to be one of the more interesting blogs in this series both in written content and in presentation. This blog had a great look. I didn't realize how much I appreciated that until I saw this blog. It got me thinking about the types of magazines and blogs that I frequent. I wonder how much more I am willing to frequent a blog or how much more likely I am to pick up a specific magazine due to it's layout? I loved the use of the pictures - especially the baby "testing" the floor. :) The writing conveyed a personal experience because it compared an expectation of  an aspect of "home". As someone who has lived overseas I completely identified with the experience of seeing how international companies market themselves abroad.

Travel Blogging 3/11

When I read these blogs, I immediately went for connection. "So, okay, they are all travel blogs, but what makes them different?" The approach, the feeling you get when reading them, the tone, point of view, and style of writing (etc) have unique positions. They create the movement of the piece and draw in their audiences accordingly. One thing the reader is able to trust unanimously is the first hand experience.

Sprouts En Route- used a very successful tone for its purpose. The author sounded like a teacher who was talking to her students before they go on a field trip or a tour guide. The voice provided informational credibility. She designates credibility by stating:

I really hope this series will bless you and help you to avoid the mistakes that I and others have made in the past. We have had some amazing guests come stay with us, and I think each of us can always improve in this area. 

Down to all her main points being underlined and in bold font, her language was easy to follow and guiding.

White Water rafting at the Source of the Uganda- guided its readers through the authors personal thrill. The language was fitting and exhilarating. He made his experience understandable to readers who may have never rafted before. And for those who have, a place where they were able to relate and relive those moments.

This blog came off as an entertainment piece. He did things like including factual information about rafting and the different levels of rapids to show their intensity level, drawing attention to all the elements combining in this action.

I found myself laughing (out loud) and clapping to the excitement. Side note, I LOVE rafting, and have had the privilege of going several times.

Starbucks in Beijing- had an entertainment/homey feel. It read somewhat informatively and utilized humor. This blog was especially neat because it talked about something which was familiar to us in another country. The subtle differences between Starbucks were somewhat humorous. The light reading, info and pictures load kept me interested. I also noticed how this blog really appeals to what people want to hear. Even when the author included the talk about calories at the end: 

I asked my tutor if people like Starbucks here and she said, "I think if you work in the CBD in one of the tall buildings [note: she means a corporate job, probably] then you’d like very much to bring your cup of Starbucks to work with you." Does she drink it? "No, it has too many calories! I’d have to run around all day…"

 I get the "magazine vibe" here. There isn't much room for opinion either.

Brook vs. the World, Anxiety Towards Flying: You're Not Alone- was interesting to me. The point seemed to be to encourage people to get past their anxieties of travels and find out what they are missing out on, or prevent them from missing out. But, for me, the tone of the blog had a reverse effect. I found myself getting anxiety from reading it. I know her intentions were more along the lines of, "I can offer some tips and insight from those (other travelers) who have struggled and overcome their fear (at least to a degree)," but I felt more repelled. She started to make me think about all the things which make people anxious a little too much. The negative outweighed the positive maybe?

There wasn't enough revaluation for me. I also didn't agree with the advice the people were giving. I think this blog would have been more successful if she integrated herself in between the people and gave more of an intro to the different pieces. The intro and conclusion weren't enough for me. I have had my battles with anxiety and am not impressed with this blog. It isn't as simply solved as some people make it seem. She is sort of pushing too hard to soften up a complicated topic. (Sorry if this portion was a little too opinion based.)

Travel blogs

The blog Whitewater Rafting at the Source of the Nile in Uganda had me hooked immediately with the subject matter. That wasn’t all that hooked me though. The detailed style of writing, and its tone, also grabbed my attention. In the first paragraph the author jumps right into the action with an introduction to an already interesting character, Lee, simply because of an accent. The word choice of this paragraph makes for an action packed scene:  “Warned”, “deep breath”, “churned violently”, “sheer water ledge”, “clutched”, “hit”, “snapped”, “dropped”, “crashed”, and “asphyxiating alarm”.  Lee’s shouting added to the tension (“'GET DOON! HOLD OON!'", and “"Hard farwards!" Lee barked”).

I think the author’s choice to break this blog up into sections helped to keep my attention too.  I found myself paying attention to each individual scene he provided us more than I would have if the blog weren’t broken up this way. Each section illuminates a different part of the author’s experience. In “Riding the Source of the Nile” we begin the journey with a little back story and some information on the Nile. The next section “Cast & Crew” is where we are introduced to the 7 strangers he is taking this rafting trip with. He gives us little details like where they’re from, how they all know each other, and the function of a “two-member support crew”. His most detailed description is of Lee, their Scottish guide who “knew everything there was to know about whitewater rafting.” He could’ve just said “There were 7 other men on the trip with me who I did not know”, which of course would’ve made for a very uninteresting read.

In the section titled “Whitewater Rafting 101” we see again an example of the author’s attention to detail. He dedicates the whole section to Lee’s lesson of the crucifix position: “floating on your back, feet up and pointing downriver, arms splayed out at your side”. Then, in "Everyone Screams and Everyone Gets Wet", we learn what a class 5 rapid is (“The International Whitewater Rating System describes class five rapids as "extremely difficult; long violent rapids that must be scouted from shore; dangerous drops, unstable eddies, strong, irregular currents and hydraulics."). This explanation of rafting specific terms helps to open this blog up to a wider audience. I thought of this section as the attention-keeper with sentences like “We were going to hit four sets of class five rapids.”, and “But the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) is saved for last: a class five nightmare known as "The Bad Place"”.

The suspenseful tone is still present in “Flip as Often as Possible” as seen by the use of words such as: “intense”, “terrors”, “collides”, “rise” “swell”, “uneasily”, “bursting”, “onslaught”, “sensation”, “violent”, “smack”, “snapping”, “sucked and sped”, “gasping”, “incredible”, “elation”, and “flood”.

In the final section, “The Bad Place Awaits”, the author continues his use of detailed description. The event of going over the “the bad place” probably only lasted a few seconds, but the author chooses this section to be the longest. An example of a passage that makes me feel like I am there with him is: “My entrance into the water was like a belly flop off a high dive; my lifejacket cushioned the blow but didn't prevent the air from being knocked out of my lungs. Breathless, I took several hard tumbles before being sucked underwater and downstream. I tried my best to remain calm. I counted it out.”

With his word choice, form, and attention to detail this author makes us feel like we are there with him.

Reading the blog “Starbucks in Beijing” I notice how important the photos are. The pictures guide the author and help her tell her story. She points to her camera in the first sentence of the blog (“I haven’t been brave enough to haul my big-ass camera around”), a clue that photos are an important part of the blogging process for this author.  

            The first picture is of a Starbucks coffee cup on a checkerboard table, and the author provides it after she shares with us that Starbucks looks very similar in Beijing. Here she addresses the photo directly, which is another clue that photos are essential to this bloggers blogging: “everything down to the furniture seems like direct imports (doesn’t the checkerboard table below look familiar?).” These pictures are acting as this authors descriptive detail. In the next paragraph the text isn’t very descriptive, and I didn’t get a real sense the experience the author was sharing with us until I saw the photo. By the third paragraph I got her formula. I was a little confused by her jumping into “I’m not sure if this is standard”. “Not sure if what was standard?” I said to myself, but I was sure all would be cleared up with a photo. The author wasn’t entirely reliant on photos. I enjoyed the insight into blueberries being all the rage, corn and red beans being more part of the Asian palette because of their sweetness, and the American-like accent of the cashier. I wanted the author to share more of those details in words, and wished she’d stop relying on the photos. It’s not that I am against the use of photos; I actually usually gravitate to blogs with visuals. But, the photos in this blog felt more like a crutch rather than a tool to enrich her story.  

             This aspect of the blog stood out so much to me because I read it right after the white water rafting blog where the author used so much detail. I think the author of the Starbucks in Beijing blog isn’t making a mistake by using the photos as a guide for her story, but I was a little disappointed that she relied on the photos to get across details.  There is a happy medium that many bloggers reach where the words and visuals have a more harmonious relationship.

Blog-crazy

Starbucks in Beijing

What struck me the most about the blog entry entitled, ‘Starbucks in Beijing’ was its use of pictures and the comparison between American chain stores and Chinese chain stores. From these two details alone, I felt that what was most important here was the implied audience, that is, people who are curious about other countries within the context of what seems familiar to them. This implied audience didn’t seem to like they would be too concerned with culture or ways of living, but rather to make simple comparisons of how another country compares to the U.S. For example, the author doesn’t include any pictures of the people or any of the surrounding environment, but chooses to strictly limit her photos to those of the products in a Starbucks and her child; this narrow focus on the products of a store that is already familiar to the author and, most likely, her readers, reveals that her implied audience is probably quite comfortable in their home country and may not have done much travelling. Even in her introduction, the author compares the stores to stores in the U.S.:  “There’s a lot of foreign brands in Beijing, like Walmart (same as the states except completely different products/brands) and Carrefour (a French supermarket chain) and Lotte’s (South Korean – Japanese conglomerate) and from the inside all three of them look almost exactly the same to me — but totally wild — I’ve never seen anything like it outside of China.” By relating her experiences to things that are widely known in the United States, the author also keeps her audience quite expansive, but offers limited insight to the actual culture (besides maybe a little bit about food and dietary concerns).

Whitewater Rating at the Source of the Nile in UgandAAAAAAAHHHH
The blog on whitewater rafting focused many elements of its writing on recreating the excitement and adrenaline of the trip. The text is mostly focused on external action, which reflects the author’s preoccupation with what was going on around him and his limited time to think about the circumstances. Even during his brushes with death, the writer makes extremely brief mention of his emotions:

I snapped to the surface and started a new breath; before I could finish I crashed mouth-first into a wave and was underwater again. The deep stillness had left me; asphyxiating alarm took its place. I counted out: One. Two. Thr – Yes! I was on the surface, coughing, breathing.

Aside from his quick mention about the “asphyxiating alarm” that he experienced, the only notion readers have of his emotions is with the use of the exclamation mark after ‘yes’. The limited number of details also pushes the action forward and reveals the sharp focus of the writer on his task at hand. His focus on the external action drives the movement of the piece, which is increased by the short sentences and small paragraphs and also reflects the fast, dangerous rapids and the way that the author was being tossed around in them. Lastly, the author utilizes the reader’s knowledge of stereotypes to fill in the characterizations of the people who were rafting with him: “Two Norwegians, two Brits, one Greek, and one South African”. By doing this, he keeps the focus on the action while also including details that help the reader imagine the scenario.

The Best Guest: Information and Expectations

What stuck out to me about the article, ‘The Best Guest: Information and Expectations’ was the author’s tone. It struck me as very motherly and very proper, as if the author were the parent and the reader were the inexperienced child. The first thing that I noticed within this vein of thought was the author’s very brief introduction to her article. She simply writes, “This is the first post in “The Best Guest” series, and I am so excited to get started!” From there, she launches directly into advising her reader, revealing her strict focus on directing the reader in their travels as opposed to creating any kind of relationship with her audience. An example of the author’s motherly tone is here: “We should never put our gracious hosts in such an uncomfortable position!” First, the writer refers to both herself and the readers as ‘we’, reminding me of the stereotypical etiquette-obsessed mothers who both guide their children firmly and soften the directness of the statement by taking responsibility through communalizing the statement. Additionally, the writer describes the hosts as “gracious”, directing all potential fault on the reader/visitor, should they fail to acknowledge and appreciate the hosts’ graciousness. The writer’s properness arises when she apologizes for sharing instances where visitors were not considerate towards their hosts: “I’m sorry to bring up such unpleasant examples”. This apology comes with the notion an archaic ideal (or, at least, archaic to me) that conversation should always be ‘pleasant’ (it’s also been a while since I heard the word ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’ used seriously).


Anxiety Towards Flying: You're Not Alone
I found that one of the main intentions of this blog was to give hope to the reader. By entitling the piece with the phrase, "You're Not Alone", gives the reader a sense that they are not alienated in their struggles, but rather that there are other people to whom they can relate and seek advice from. Also, the writer chooses to interview several people; this not only enforces the idea that the reader is not alone, but that there are people who have successfully overcome their struggle with flying anxiety, and thus, it seems more plausible. Additionally, the writer begins her blog by saying, "I get nervous about...well..many stupid things in my life." By sharing her own weakness with the reader, she creates a sense of intimacy and trust and also shows the reader that she can relate to them on some level on the topic at hand. The way that the questions are set up are ordered so that the reader builds up to the feeling of hope: "How has anxiety with flying impacted your travels...or life in general?...What steps did you take to overcome this fear, or at least minimize it?...What was your motivation to overcome this obstacle?...Advice you'd give to someone with similar issues?" First, the reader gets an inside look at what the fear of flying may really be limiting them from in a way that he/she may or may not have noticed before. With that new insight, the reader can then see the different methods people had of overcoming their fear of flight. In addition to that, the author asks about motivation, which is another form of method to conquering their fears and gives a positive spin on what might be possible in contrast to what the fear of flight was limiting them from. Lastly, the blog finishes by asking directly for advice about accomplishing a similar goal, giving the reader the tools to try beating their fears as well.

The Freak Show Factor

Like Amanda, I also noticed that there are two categories of travel blogs here: advice and experience. Brooke vs. The World (travel anxiety) and Sprouts en Route (the best guest) are advice about how to travel. Almost Fearless and Vagabonding are about travel experiences. I enjoyed the travel experiences blogs more than the advice ones, even though you'd think the advice ones apply to me more: I do get anxious flying (especially to Israel, which is the only place I ever go), and i do worry about being a crappy guest. Further, I don't care for Starbucks, nor am I interested in ever going to China; I am equally disinterested in going to Uganda, and I don't give a you-know-what about nature (in this case white water rafting.) So why were the experience blogs more compelling than the relevant advice ones?

The freak show factor.

It's fun to read about weird stuff. Starbucks (something familiar) in China (unfamiliar) is freaky. Scottish people talking is freaky. The advice blogs were practical without being freaky. Might I add, they weren't that practical, either. Mind you, they COULD HAVE been freaky. I would have enjoyed reading about disaster guests, and total airplane meltdowns. Further, the advice blogs lacked authority. I would have trusted them more if they had given me some examples of how they learned the information they're sharing. (ex: I learned how to be a good guest after one of my guests used all the toilet paper in the house to design a wedding gown.)I also wasn't clear on what the take-away was at the end. I think there's a lot one could say about host-guest relationships, which vary greatly in formality. Shouldn't there be a different protocol for staying at my aunt's house than with a friend-of-a-friend?

Lastly, while this isn't a literary component, blogs can have pictures. The advice blogs had a few stock photos. The experience blogs had personal pictures that made the event much more real. Again, if the advice blogs had had pictures of "how to destroy your guest room and piss off your host forever" or "what I look like after 6 margaritas before my flight," they would have been more enjoyable.

Extra lastly, this was a great hook: "I’ve been meaning to do a post on the supermarkets here in Beijing but I haven’t been brave enough to haul my big-ass camera around the teeming multi-level thunderdome of shopping known as my local Lotte’s."

Reading the Nile

This week’s blog readings seemed to fall neatly into two categories united by the theme of travel: travel narratives and advice about travel. I really enjoyed the first blog, “Whitewater Rafting at the Source of the Nile in Uganda” because it was exciting and met all my expectations about what a travel adventure could be. In terms of travel narratives as a whole, I feel they are inherently interesting because they are outside the realm of the speaker’s normal experience; therefore he or she will see the experience with more depth, wonder, and see more significance in everything. Then it becomes the teller’s job to recreate in words those feelings and sensory details. How to communicate these? I felt this blog employed several very effective strategies:

1) En media res: the authors plunges us immediately into the action of the story, beginning with instructions spoken by the rafting guide. An immediate sense of movement, of physicality, excitement, and the thrill of danger are all communicated from the very beginning. The title (which could have been catchy, but is instead straightforward) is really all the context we are given—but it is all the context we really need.  This quick pace is maintained throughout the piece, even though he does back up a few times and give short bits of background information. This pacing, again, mirrors the swiftness and attention-demanding nature of the white water areas that he highlights on this run.   

2) Dialect: not only does the story begin en media res, but the very first line is written in dialogue, creating a slight disorientation that suspends the reader’s interest until it becomes clear who is speaking and why he sounds like that. The use of dialect also communicates an instant characterization; in such a short piece about such a sensory-heavy experience, every detail needs to serve the purpose of the story and this use of dialect goes a long way. As the only character with dialogue, it also places Lee as a focal point in the blog; not only was he the author’s guide while rafting, he is now a vehicle to guide us through understanding this experience.       

3) Structure: the structure of the blog is used very effectively to keep the pacing quick and . Paragraphs are very short, often only one line. This made the piece feel very journalistic, like it was designed to keep interest and with clarity always in mind. If the blog had been composed of big, cumbersome paragraphs it would have weighed the narrative down and maybe been more difficult to follow. The author also used subheadings on some sections and then wrote those sections like snapshots—very succinct, very clear, and concentrated. My favorite one was  "Everyone Screams and Everyone Gets Wet": “The stretch of whitewater we were rafting was made up of class three, four, and five rapids with names such as "Rib Cage", "Silverback", "Jaws", and "The G-Spot" ("because, if you hit it right, everybody screams and everybody gets wet," Lee told us).” The title links to the end of the paragraph, making it a discrete and unified unit, while also making a pithy little joke, and furthering the feeling of adventure and the camaraderie that comes with it. It almost felt to me like it could be a little vignette on its own.      

4) Specific description: the author uses description very concisely in the relatively short space of the blog. He uses detailed, concrete language to paint vivid pictures of what he is going through. For example in the passage:

Then a heavy, violent sheet of water would smack down on me, snapping my body around in summersaults, corkscrewing me into the deep. With the safety line just a distant memory, I'd see blue sky and white water, then pure green as the undertow sucked and sped me downstream” 

First we get the characterization of the water as “heavy” and “violent,” as he is thrown down helplessly into the water. Then his body is “Snapping” and “corkscrewing,” more violent imagery that connotes he is being moved by the water with such force that he cannot control his body. Finally we get vivid color imagery and a moment of peace in “Blue sky” “white water” and “pure green.” In such simple, yet vivid terms, he describes the juxtaposition of air, water surface, and then the plunge back into the violence of being under water.

3/4 Common Knowledge

It's amazing how common knowledge, stereotypes, and understandable "life scenarios"  have embedded themselves into our culture. So much that we can quote the general public and use it as evidence for the points we want to express. The author's of this weeks blogs were able to use completely different situations, which they came across in different ways, to express their opinions. Each subject was entirely different, but the method worked for all.

In the first blog, by Marion Roach Smith, she used a Walmart scene to describe how she felt about the writing process. If we didn't know what Walmart was, we still may have understood the scenario she uses to show her analogy, but we would have missed the fullness of her argument. Walmart is a commonly known chaotic store which has everything imaginable in it. A place that's hard to just go in and pick out exactly what you came in for. She uses pop culture to her advantage.

The next blog, by Akiba Solomon, uses pop culture in a different method. She uses a celebrity relationship and a book to portray a racial appearance issue. Readers understand where she is coming from because there is a general knowledge of the characters she uses. Although the book is a little harder to understand as it isn't quite as popular as Jay- Z and Beyonce, she talks about a subject which people know enough about to see where she is coming from. It's sad we understand where she is coming from, but the author uses the general knowledge to her advantage. 

In the last blog, I found it more of an unfortunate stereotypical downfall story. The subject was put into a category where she automatically was put into a position of doubt because of her career choice. In this story there a lot of pieces of information which people probably have never heard of. But because people understand that prostitutes have this view that people portray, they understand the unfortunate placement of the character in this story.

The technique used in this weeks blogs proved to be effective. It is satisfying to the readers because it gives them some credit for needing to use some of their common knowledge to decipher the meaning behind the text. Each writer was able to take a different approach with it, but used it to their advantage, and came out strong.

Bloggin' blog blog

Amy Davidson's blog was short and to the point. However she was able to deliver some great imagery while talking about this shameful man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The idea of him seeing women like "...barbies at the bottom of a toy bin." gives the reader a strong sense of how appreciated women are to him. The bottom of the toy bin; the toys who live there are the ones you only bother digging out when you can't find something better. Or maybe when you can't rape the hotel maid. I hadn't heard of Strauss-Kahn prior to this blog (don't judge e to harshly for being out of the loop) so I goggled him. According to Wikipedia, he is a hard working French man with 4 beautiful children and is currently happily married to his 3rd wife; I wonder how much longer that's going to last...Nothing was mentioned of fancy sex parties exclusively for the super rich, no rape allegations. However according to BBC news, he's a well know regular of French prostitutes. This blog lead me to the question: at what point does a man like Strauss-Kahn become sex-able? Yeah, he might be an influential French man, but he's also really old; and not to be age-ist, but highly you attractive if you ask me. At what point (or maybe the better question is at what amount) does he become the guy for you? This applies both, I feel to his wives and to these prostitutes. And with all of this sex do seemingly readily available what is it that makes him try to rape a hotel maid and then dare to make the excuse that he thought she was a hooker. How rude and degrading is that? The line that stuck out to me in this piece was where Davidson asks us, "Can you distinguish a politician in a cell from any other jailed man?" I would like to be able to answer "NO!" to this, but that would be a lie. In American at least, being a politician or a celebrity means that the normal rules of society are not your rules. At what point (or amount of net worth) does a person become unaccountable? In the She Writes blog, by Marion Roach Smith, I was drawn to thinking back to Coopers work in Maps to Anywhere. She tells future writers "what will not work is the phrase, "This is a tragedy and the illustration is my marriage", which is too big.". Writing a story of your life can be difficult I'm sure. What parts are crucial to include? Which parts are essential to the entertainment of my readers? Smith suggests you chose a pivotal point, an "ah ha moment" that the story is based around. This is what reminded me of Coopers work. Though I hadn't thought of it this way before, that's what Cooper did, and what I enjoyed do much about his work. It was all built around a moment of learning, learning how to live with death. Smith then goes on, telling her readers that are to be the "picture in the frame"' and simultaneously that they should not be the main focus of their writing. That's where she lost me, I don't understand how those two concepts go together....but I kept right on reading anyways and found her analogy of Galileo trying to find a small, specific part amongst all the many objects of a store (I prefer to think of him in Target, where I'm personally more easily distracted!). "You must speed-shop your overstocked whiz-bang subconscious..." Not an easy task. Her analogy did make it very clear, in this instance, to understand the tricks if trade she is trying to impart. Im glad the blog by Akiba Solomon was short. I hate reading about people's opinions of celebrities, what could possibly be more pointless. I guess I have a bias. What I did notice about it was the battle between "prettiness" and "ugliness" rearing it's head throughout the blog. The quotes Solomon chose to incorporate, all talking about how it's too bad this baby is ugly and looks "back" were some of the ugliest writing I've had to read. Like the Facebook statuses of people too ghetto for me to understand (maybe that's a little rude, but I'm just trying to be honest.). What gets too me is that after these ugly words he says he enjoys reading about people's relationship with beauty because "people can be so ugly, but words are pretty." Sometimes. It all just comes down to the persons point of view. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say, maybe we should just leave it that way...

Look for the angle shot.

What struck me most about these three blog posts is how much you had to be "in the know" to really understand them. I feel that this is often the case with blogs. In my experience blogs generally have well informed or "in-tune" followers that know a bit about the content of the blog or at least have interests in common or an appreciation of the angle the blogger takes.


In Davidson's "STRAUSS-KAHN’S NAKED CHALLENGE" I was thrown around by Davidson's tone and lack of deeper explanation about the "scandal" between Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the maid that was raped. I felt distracted and manipulated. Because I had so little to go off from this post I felt myself just siding with Davidson without even knowing anything of substance. The quotes make his lawyer's argument seem extremely pathetic, bringing me back once again to the realization that I am being VERY manipulated as a reader. I felt the same thing while being enlightened about Baby Blue Ivy Carter.


Beyonce and Jay-Z had a baby and decided to name Blue Ivy Carter?!?! Whoa! News to me. Have I been under a rock? While reading Solomon's critique of/comparison of the image of black people through a very specific lens that compared online comments/opinions of the looks of Beyonce and Jay-Z's new baby and the looks of "Maude Martha" by Gwendolyn Brooks. Whoa again! Talk about specific angle and needing to know inside knowledge. I found myself having to google "Blue Ivy Carter" because I didn't even know the baby had been born let alone that that was its name and I don't know the blogger enough to trust that she is honest (which speaks volumes to me about the medium of blogging). I also had to google "Maude Martha" because I had never heard of the book. I felt like the comparison between the harsh critiques of the looks of black people was a bit out there given the sources, one a novel, and the other, online comments regarding Baby Blue. 


Of all the blogs I liked "Writing Memoir? Use the Algorithm and act Like Galileo in Walmart" the best because I, as a writer, felt invested in what Smith was talking about. I want to know about writing memoirs and I understood the Galileo in Walmart reference.  I felt chills when I read, "'Show, don’t tell.” Don’t tell me it was sad; show me how sadness looks, and let me do the math."Oh," I should say to myself at the end of your piece, “now that’s sad.'” Isn't that what all writers chase after? Portraying the human condition so beautifully that the reader just connects without feeling the writer straining behind the words? The fact that I liked this blog goes back to what I was saying about the reader needing to feel invested in the subject of the blog and the tone of the blogger. 


Reading these blogs has made me see blogging in a new light. First I want to pick the blogs I follow because I want to be interested in what they say, two I want to trust the blogger so I don't need to go in constant search of verification, and three, I want to feel "in the know". It just isn't pleasant reading informal writing about something you know little about.

moar blawgs

Let's start with "Writing Memoir? Use the Algorithm and Act Like Galileo in Walmart." As she recommends in this piece, Smith gets right to the point. In a nutshell, her point is to focus on the point. Alice Walker did this in Chicken Chronicles, and we noticed that there did seem to be a meaningful nugget in each vignette. And then those nuggets tied together nicely. (I will remind you that Bernard Cooper failed to do this in Maps to Anywhere.) Walker wrote her memoir from the perspective of a chicken farmer, and did not include details about other parts of her life, like her daughter, or how she got to be a writer, or other things you might expect reading the memoir of Alice Walker. While Smith was writing about memoirs in particular, I think having a point and an angle by which you make that point is generally good to do.

The Colorlines blog partially accomplishes what Smith suggests. She's writing about "the alleged ugliness of blackness," and she uses Blue Ivy Carter and Gwendolyn Brooks as the lens to examine it. And like the pragmatism she mentions in the Brooks excerpt, she writes "There’s nothing I can write to make this better," conceding that while there's a problem, there's nothing she can do about it. It seems like a few of my colleagues took issue with this. Indeed, it does seem rather defeatist. I think the fact that Solomon addresses this issue without attempting to change it or even offering ways we can stop the phenomenon leaves the reader unsatisfied.

Similarly, some of my colleagues seemed miffed that Davidson at The New Yorker doesn't go into more detail. And, flouting Smith's advice, she seems to just be making an observation that DSK is a jackass, when really the issue she (and all of us) should be talking about is how women who speak up about rape are systematically shut down. It would have been very powerful indeed if she was looking at this phenomenon through the lens of this case.

Sabrina, Alanna, and I examined what makes a letter to the editor of the NYT publishable in one of our other classes. The letters to the editor that we read were by and large concise, only talked about one point, used "$10 words," and often had a snarky ending. I'd say the New Yorker piece has all those components:
concise: only 388 words
made one point: DSK was a jackass when he said "I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman."
used $10 words: "and yet," "sundry," "one wonders."
snarky ending: check. And snarky beginning.

I suppose that after reading all these pieces, my conclusion is that it is hard to write about something well without including all the details (which runs its own risk of bogging down your story.) While our class seemed to collectively approve of Chicken Chronicles, we did wonder how she could write a memoir that lacked her major life events. The Colorlines and New Yorker pieces left us wanting more as well. In conclusions-- good writing: easier said than done!

Assessing Solomon's Blog

After reading this blog, I felt slightly unsettled due to my own unmet expectations of the author and her neglect to directly address the issues which trouble her. The first paragraph of the blog uses strong language to inform the reader about her stance: "I knew if I indulged in even a smidgen more about this little girl, I'd find myself walking among stunted souls who traffic in the idea that full lips, large eyes, broad nose, and dark brown skin of a Jay-Z is inherently ugly." She describes people who subscribe to racist views of beauty as "stunted souls", suggesting that they are lacking in compassion, empathy, wisdom - everything that a 'soul' might imply. Personally, the word 'traffic' (in reference to something traded illegally) conjured up the idea of drug use, implying not only that racism is a drug, but that there is a black market economy that is based on it. People are being wronged and taken advantage of for the success of others, and in this blog, it is racism that is being perpetuated to create a dominant conception of beauty.

I can agree with all of that. I can also agree with Solomon's strategy of naming specific stereotypical characteristics about African American people as opposed to simply saying 'blackness', a strategy that slows the reader down and makes him or her take inventory of their own conceptions of those characteristics.

What I don't agree with is in the next paragraph, where Solomon seems to shift tones from anger to a sad and (in my opinion) unwarranted optimism. That isn't to say that she shouldn't be optimistic, but rather that appears to succumb to not only allowing the problem to exist  but to pretending that it doesn't exist. She writes, "I do believe these statements are a true expression of what too many people - my people - are saying about this child and feeling about themselves. There's nothing I can write to make this better. Not addressing it won't make it better, either." Here, she assesses what she believes is the underlying cause of the statements she shared about Blue Ivy Carter and then promptly excuses herself by claiming powerlessness. However, she leaves off with the expectation that she will, in fact, address the issue at hand by admitting that she cannot "make it better" by "not addressing it". Instead, Solomon's tone shifts again: "There is, though, some beauty to be had in matters like colorism. Personally, I've found solace in good books, particularly works of fiction that allow me to process the nauseating reality from a distance." As opposed to discussing the actual problem of the racist implications of Eurocentric standards of beauty, Solomon dives into a discussion about how a sample of Gwendolyn Brooks' work sets a framework for African American people to happily live without facing the issue of racism. She appears to be offering a home remedy to a non-serious matter with her use of the words 'personally' and 'solace'. Solomon also writes, "[p]eople can be so ugly, but words are pretty". This quote was particularly problematic to me because it implies that words have no meaning beyond creating loveliness for their readers. (Personally, I am of the firm belief that sometimes words need to be ugly in order to be more than simple words.) The fact that Solomon writes, "words are pretty", as opposed to using a more impermanent term such as 'can', implies the belief that words are always "pretty".

Solomon's description of Gwendolyn Brooks' work is additionally problematic for me, specifically in the sentence, "Brooks shows us how some women of color look in the mirror and assess what they see with pragmatism rather than self-destructive melodrama." Following this sentence, Brooks' character describes herself as "sweet. But I am certainly not what he would call pretty...Pretty would be a little cream-colored thing with curly hair" Despite Solomon's initial disgust with hatred towards stereotypical African American features, she characterizes Maud's description of herself as "pragmatic". She writes later in her blog that "[t]he power in these passages lie in their straightforwardness and honesty...Maud and Paul know what world they're living in, and they do just that: Live". While the characters may be very honest about their opinions of themselves, what Solomon is not addressing is that their self-image has been hindered by the very racist standards of beauty that Solomon was lamenting in the beginning of her article. Her dismissal, whether conscious or unconscious, of what values lay beneath the dialogue in Brooks' work, along with Solomon's failure to address the topic she showed so much initial anger towards, left me feeling unsatisfied after reading her blog.

Blogs, take two.

STRAUSS-KAHN’S NAKED CHALLENGE

by Amy Davidson

            I had many layers of reaction to Amy Davidson’s blog Strauss-Kahn’s Naked Challenge. I first noticed that, overall, I enjoyed this blog because of the author’s use of snark. There’s a sarcastic tone throughout: “Women are so confusing”, “Quite aside from the customs at parties in which the guests are never seen dressed, this challenge doesn’t actually strike one as all that challenging”. (After Word told me that “snark” is not a real word I looked up the definition and found this: An imaginary animal [used to refer to someone or something that is difficult to track down]. I found this funny because when I sat down to write this blog I asked myself, how does one prove the tone of snark?) Besides the presence of snark I was drawn to this blog because it addresses what I consider an important topic: negative attitudes toward women. I read it and, like any article that exposes male chauvinism, I was happy that this kind of dialogue is taking place. However, there is something else that happens when I read an article that focuses on a topic that I find important: I get critical. For instance, when I read, “The charges were eventually dropped, because of worries about her credibility” I yelled in my head “Don’t take it for granted that people know of the long history of defense lawyers breaking down women’s reputations in rape trials!!”. Had I not participated in a course that focused on how our legal system effects women I doubt I would understand the complexity of this “tradition”. One of the topics of that course was the scrutiny under which women are placed in rape trials and why their reputation would even matter. I would’ve liked Davidson to say a little more on this since it is such a huge issue, and the reason many rape victims do not come forward. This lack of depth makes me remember the medium Davidson is using, and I wonder if maybe one function of a blog is a concise way to start a conversation. Perhaps, had Davidson gone any more in-depth, her editors would’ve chosen this to be an article. Maybe a blog that is attached to an identity such as The New Yorker is really only meant to function like a modern day op-ed? But, then, why call the blog “Close Read”? So, as you can see, I’m left with mixed feelings on this blog.

On Baby Blue Ivy Carter and the Alleged Ugliness of Blackness

by Akiba Solomon

I enjoyed the concise nature of On Baby Blue Ivy Carter and the Alleged Ugliness of Blackness by Akiba Solomon. It wasn’t the same type of concise as Amy Davidson’s blog, which I would liken to briefness. In Solomon’s blog I liken her conciseness to very deliberate choices of information to share because of the short form she’s writing in. Within 8 very short paragraphs Solomon took a very specific event (the birth of Jay-Z and Beyonce’s child), share’s comments found on the internet and her insights into them, and references a book that leads her to her message of living your life despite others judgments. 

WRITING MEMOIR? USE THE ALGORITHM AND ACT LIKE GALILEO IN WALMART

by Marion Roach Smith

Reading WRITING MEMOIR? USE THE ALGORITHM AND ACT LIKE GALILEO IN WALMART by Marion Roach Smith made me think of our abstraction ladder exercise in class. What they have in common is the break down of a broad topic in order to create interest or understanding. In our abstraction ladder exercise we were made to take a broad statement and filter it through examples and observations that would support our argument. Smith writes that the process of writing a memoir involves a similar filtration. Using her algorithm “this is an (x) and the illustration is (y)” will help you “reduce the essence of the tale to a single totemic emotion”, which will shift your story into the “new position of importance”. In other words, people will care about your story.

            I also found it interesting that Smith takes a big idea like picking only important details out of your experience to tell your story (“You must speed-shop your overstocked whiz-bang subconscious, snagging only those items tagged by the subject you’ve chosen”), and filters it through the metaphor of Galileo shopping in Wal-Mart to get her readers to understand. 

Baby Blue and Strauss-Kahn

For whatever reason, in my readings of these blogs, the feature that really stood out to me was tone.

In “On Baby Blue Ivy Carter and the Alleged Ugliness of Blackness” by Akiba Solomon, the tone felt to me a little sad and a little regretful for the limitations of mainstream conceptions of beauty. The language is informal and the style very competent, but rather than communicating passion for expanding or changing readers’ minds, I read this blog as more of a lament. Phrases like “There’s nothing I can write to make this better” and “Personally, I’ve found solace…” made this blog feel more stationary rather than inciting movement. Maybe it is Solomon’s choice of literature with which to juxtapose the current discussion around Baby Blue: Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha in which “Brooks shows us how some women of color look in the mirror and assess what they see with pragmatism rather than self-destructive melodrama….The power in these passages lies in their straightforwardness and honesty.” In a world where the term “body dysmorphia” exists and beauty is placed at such a premium, especially for the famous, I am all for injecting some pragmatism. Yet, I feel in the context of this blog, these lines of Brook’s poetry, though beautiful, in some ways communicate a buy-in to the belief that “black” features are less beautiful than white. Now, Brooks’ characters having these thoughts in the context of her novel is certainly a comment on society in the sense of how these characters understand the racial hierarchy of mainstream conceptions of beauty, but for Solomon to include this 60 year old attitude of recognizing this racial beauty hierarchy and your place within it as “pragmatic’ seems to border on defeatist. I think the key comes in the next sentence when Solomon says “So Maud and Paul know what world they’re living in, and they do just that: Live.” I see that she’s trying to tell Baby Blue—and all readers of all times—to understand the limitations of society’s definition of beauty and then to live happily in spite of them. Yet I feel like we should do more to expand those very definitions.     

I was very impressed with “Strauss-Kahn’s Naked Challenge” by Amy Davidson; it amazed me how pithy and damning (and I mean that as a good thing) she could be in only a few short paragraphs. The tone feels very specific and very consciously chosen (rather than being a natural, unconscious style, like we might see in a personal blog). It is certainly journalistic in nature: assertive, formal/informal language, pointed, intelligent, her indignance held in by—or maybe expressed through—her rationality. In fact it is this rationality which makes her mocking of Strauss-Kahn so effective and keeps it out of “bashing” territory. By exposing the ridiculous illogic of Strauss-Kahn’s defense, Davidson is able to thoroughly trounce the politician without getting her hands dirty, maintaining the complete professionalism we would expect from a New Yorker writer. Her critique of the situation is threefold: First, that this is another story of a man in power attempting to be excused for bad behavior simply because he is powerful. Second, the rampant sexism in these cases: that mistaking a hotel maid for a prostitute is a reasonable assumption, and Strauss-Kahn’s defense’s challenge “to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman.” And third, that as a citizen of another country Strauss-Kahn’s attitude of doing whatever he wants is even more disgusting: “Given how upset French people got when the N.Y.P.D. held him here, and treated him like anyone else, one wonders about the conditions of his detention.” Her tone, humor, and logic applied to illogical behavior make Davidson seem immediately credible and convincing to adopt her feelings and judgment of Strauss-Kahn, and her ability to end on the perfect note is impeccable: “Can you distinguish a politician in a cell from any other jailed man—or any common criminal? In Strauss-Kahn’s case, that may be a challenge.” You got me Davidson, hook, line, and sinker.