Weekly English Post #7 - The Finale

Well it all comes down to this, the last post of third semester senior year English. We’ve had some good times, some bad times, some angry times, as well as some thoughtful ones, but its time for it to come to an end. The last post will be a potpourri of elements due to the simple fact that I once again am lacking the creative knowledge to proceed with something original.

I’ll start with what the last post lacked which were any details about the stories I had read. The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal was an emotional experience of epic proportions that awakened ancient feelings in my bottomless pit of a heart and allowed me to revaluate my life and what the word forgiveness actually means. The book itself wasn’t the sole reason of my newfound enlightenment but I also found it through the criticisms. “Dictionary definitions are inadequate in that they stress "pardoning" or "absolving" a wrongdoer from his bad deeds. Yet many would argue that wrong is never "righted" or "forgotten" through forgiveness,” (Lamb, 1996). I concur; just because someone “forgives” doesn’t make things right. The act of forgiving is a lot more serious than an “I’m sorry.” Its got to be felt in the soul and no more bad feelings can be between the two parties for it to be in its truest form.

I believe that the Christian religion with their "confession” the priest will always forgive them regardless of what they have done, and inside it makes the sinner feel better about himself. In reality nothing was changed. That person is still a sinner but they walk away thinking they have a clean conscience even though they don’t. It seems as if it teaches the wrong message. I think it’s a shame that people think they can find forgiveness for what they have done through a third party. They think that their priest can absolve them of all their sins even though it was not whom they sinned. Even if it will be tough to express one must ask for forgiveness from who they have sinned in order to truly be forgiven.

Those are my thoughts on forgiveness and I’m sorry if they offended anyone.

Weekly English Post #6 - My Worst Post To Date

It's going to come as a shock but I have nothing to write about this week at all. I have funny stories to tell about the following week, but about books or English in general I have nothing. This may be due to the fact that I have finished all three books in record time and now must finish the last two projects. I will start this weeks blog off with the good weekend stories. Krock Radio called me on Friday to tell me I had won tickets to see the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular at Nokia Theater at Times Square. The show started at 12 at night and lasted till 2:45 am. It was well worth the trip and the time. It was a visual experience not to be missed, including lasers, 3D glasses, and strange visuals galore. Add in the fact they played both Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall in its entirety and you have yourself a hippies dream. I cannot say I've really ever listened to Pink Floyd, but I know have a new found appreciation for them. They were able to compose some of the strangest yet compelling songs I've ever heard. Next week I make the trek back to Nokia Theater to see indie rock tour of the year, Say Anything, Manchester Orchestra, and Biffy Clyro. My last music point of this post will be that I will soon be updating my favorite albums ever! Don't worry, I've just been busy.

So I've read the three books needed to do four projects, to recap if you haven't been reading my blog I've read The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison, and Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. All the books were easy reads and they all had interesting individual components which were described in depth in each post. Overall the three books lacked the elements to make them a good book in my mind. I usually do not like the books school chooses for us to read (senior year books were good minus these three and Hamlet). So since I have nothing interesting to speak about
I'd like to describe my criteria for a good novel with a little help from some friends.

1) Characters are Believable and Realistic (in comparison to setting).
I compare reading a novel to watching a movie. If I'm watching a movie and the characters are being stalked by a killer and decide to split up I automatically go, "Wow what a terrible movie." If the characters in a novel do things like that, are obnoxious and annoying, or speak unrealistic dialogue then the novel is considered bad.

2) Villian is not Dumb
If the villian has captured the hero and heroine and decides to spend time and tell his diabolical plan instead of just killing the hero right away, the book is bad. If the villian is smart though and in the end just gets outsmarted then the book has hope.

3) Climax is Satisfying
If I'm reading and the bombshell comes and I'm blown away, thumbs up for the book.

4) Loose Ends are Tied
If the novel ends and I don't sit there scratching my head then its worthy of being considered good. On the other hand if the novel ends and I feel used I'll rip the book up. NOVELS SHOULD NEVER HAVE SEQUELS!

5) Originality
Having the brilliant creative mind I have its not often that I've read story that I myself have not previous thought of. So kudos to the authors that shock me with newness.

6) I Can't Put it Down
Obviously the most important and basically a culmination of all the above categories, if the story can be read in a matter of days or hours then its considered a good book. I have a short attention span so while reading if my mind is not jumping and I can focus solely on the story BAM! Recipe for success.

Weekly English Post #5 - Reflection Period

Another week gone, and another book read. This week while sitting in a New Orleans airport waiting for the flight back to Newark I sat down with The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal. The story tells the tale of a man in a German concentration camp during the Holocaust. One day while working outside of a hospital a nurse leads him into a room where a dying Nazi confesses his sins and asks for forgiveness. The book ends with Wiesenthal telling the reader, “to ask yourself the crucial questions, “What would I have done,”” (Wiesenthal, 1969)?

As a man of the Jewish faith, I thought the story would be an interesting and emotional read to see what my Jewish brethren had gone through. Throughout Hebrew school we have heard the horror stories, but The Sunflower was a different kind of horror, an emotional horror if you will. The enemy who has murdered millions of innocent lives asks you to forgive him for his crimes. What is one supposed to say to that? Simon Wiesenthal’s first hand experience shows both the thinking and actions that one might go through if put in this situation. The back of the book is filled with interesting criticisms from authors, teachers, and world leaders. Of the most interesting is Eugene J. Fisher. who believes that "we have no right to put Jewish survivors in the impossible moral position of offering forgiveness, implicitly, in the name of the six million. Placing a Jew in this anguished position further victimizes him or her. This, in my reading, was the final sin of the dying Nazi" (pp. 132-33, 1997). While reading the book all I could think about was what Simon was going to do, but looking at the big picture Fisher hits the nail on the head. The Nazi while in his deathbed is still able to inflict damage on the suffering Jews. He poses a question that is able to eat away at Simon’s surface, years later coming back to the for front of his life still in search of an answer.


If I were put in this situation how would I react? What I find more important is how would today’s generation act? I wanted to pose myself this interesting question for the simple fact that today’s generation is not nearly as religious or up to date on their respective faiths. I was one of those “bad” Jewish children who went to temple had the bar mitzvah and basically cut off all ties with the temple and religious aside form holidays I’m forced to attend. While I don’t necessarily think religion is a bad thing I believe you can have a “connection” with God by yourself and you do not need a church or synagogue to pray, it can be a personal thing. Also, I believe religious brings out the worst in people. For years different groups have been fighting and killing in the name of God. I don’t think that’s what God had in mind. Students nowadays believe “God is an afterthought at best. And the afterlife is, as one of my students told me, "on the back burner,”” (Prothero, 2008). With the millennial generation losing faith in religion it makes The Sunflower that more important. The more I think about it, the more it pains me to tell say that I would probably for give the dying Nazi in today’s day and age due to the simple fact that I don’t have that religious connection that people back then did.

Weekly English Post #4 - Some Insight

I finished The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison last week on the plane to Indiana University. It helped passed the time while I was flying over the Midwest. I am not going to rant and hate on the book anymore, I did enough of that in the last post. The book ended decently, but was overall a sub par book. Now its time to be focusing on the project I’m going to do, I think I’m going to do the Imovie of a dramatic reading. There is a perfect scene in the book at the end with Pecola talking to herself in the mirror. She is admiring her eyes and due to the abuse she sustained, she has created an imaginary friend to speak too. I believe I can direct this scene very creatively and make it a good watch. While I have trouble reading out loud, I’ll do my best speak clearly (possibly with an accent) and act it out well.

Before I finally decided on the dramatic reading I was thinking about possibly doing the compare contrast essay based on a short story by the author. So I used the Internet to see what other novella/short stories Toni Morrison wrote and the only one that came up was one called “Recitatif.” Recitatif is defined as the tone or rhythm peculiar to any language. I found the title as well as the story to be very interesting. The story centers around two characters, Roberta and Twyla, one of whom is black and the other white. The most intriguing part of the story is the fact that Morrison does not tell the reader which one is which. They first meet while rooming together in an orphanage. What follows is five different vignettes with the girls meeting at different ages in life. All scenes portray the characters in different lights with different attitudes towards one and another.

Due to the lack of information about each character it allows for the reader to formulate his or her own opinions. Morrison intentionally restructures “the drama of ambiguity so that it involves the reader in the impulse to fix racial meaning and to know the racial status of its characters,” (Bennet, 2001). Upon first read through of “Recitatif” I thought Roberta was the African American due to the fact that her mother wore a large cross, carried a Bible, and refused to shake Twyla’s mom’s hand. As the story progresses I switched my opinion and began to think Twyla was the African American. That’s the beauty of the story, Morrison leaves the story up for interpretation and allows the reader to think the whole time. The story refuses to solve the mystery of racial identity and instead asks “its readers to examine the importance they place on fixing racial identity, hardly allowing them to remain passive readers or disingenuously uninterested.” (Bennet, 2001).

7. Eminem - The Slim Shady LP

The only rap CD to be on this infamous list, so Eminem should be honored. This white rapper busted onto the scene in 1999 with his single "My Name Is..." after that the story wrote itself. Eminem is an incredibly angry man. He hates his wife, his mom, the record label, and almost everything, but his skill and rap flow on this disc is incredible. I am not exactly a big fan of rap or hip-hop, although I have wandered down those lanes a few times in my past, but Eminem actually transcends rap, creating a musical genre all his own that reaches out to even the most unlikeliest of places to win fans like me. The lyrics on this CD are filled with curses and adult content, but Eminem does not use the explicit lyrics to attract notoriety and sell albums; he uses explicit lyrics because he is expressing himself in a shockingly honest way, and what he gives us is his own version of truth and reality.

With beats produced by Dr. Dre you can't go wrong, but what makes the music memorable is all the little sound effects that Eminem adds after words. These sound effects enhance the song in so many levels. His lyrics, while filthy, are clever, angry, and funny all at the same time. All his newer stuff does not compare to his humor and double time raps. "Guilty Conscience" is a notable track, with Eminem and Dr. Dre playing devil and angel to folks encountering real and extreme situations. Eminem knows he is not a role model and flaunts it. Because of this he is albe to joke about himself and put out hilarious tracks like "Role Model" and "Come On Everybody" in which he tells his listening audience to "Follow me and do exactly what the song says:smoke weed, take pills, drop outta school, kill people and drink and jump behind the wheel like it was still legal." While uptight conservative people find this extremely offensive, people who understand what Eminem is about get the joke. "Still Don't Give a F*ck" is the perfect ending to this emotionally complex album, summing up in the introductory words the very essence of Eminem.

While I enjoy his next two albums, The Slim Shady LP serves as an absolutely crucial piece to the fascinating puzzle that is Eminem.