Shaun of the Dead

I was unsure going into this movie if I was going to get it or not, because I don’t find british humor funny at all. Monty Python… lost on me. But, this is one of my friend’s favorite movies and he has pretty good taste so I trusted that.

In the beginning Shaun’s obliviousness made me wonder what they were trying to say. There are zombies walking around and he’s just on his way to the store for a red bull… And how they ignored the news?! Uh hello, there’s a news anchor talking about zombies and they change the channel. The director is making a statement- that today, we are just a bunch of mindless zombies, channel surfing and playing video games with our best friend, instead of trying to be a grown up.

In a way I feel like the director was trying to make our lifestyle seem ok. By having the actual zombies, there was something lower than us. If there’s something to fall lower to, then that makes our current status ok? After Shaun and Liz survived, there was no change, no lust for life, just sitting on the couch, drinking tea, and watching some tele. What? I feel like if it were me, I’d be making changes left and right. I guess what the director is trying to point out is that there’s nothing motivating us today. There’s nothing in our generation that is worth fighting for. In a way this reminds me of Fight Club and how Tyler says we’re the middle child generation, no great war or tragedy to fight for. This makes us lethargic. We need purpose in our lives in order for our lives to be meaningful.

end of Apex

There’s a passage on page 170 that I really like, makes me think. “Of course it began at birth-by giving their children names, parents did their offspring the favor of teaching them how to lie with their very first breath. Because what we go by is rarely what makes us go.” I loooove that last line, somewhat Dr. Seuss-ish, but I still love it. In this passage he’s talking about how amazing it would be if we all went by our true names instead of what others call us. If instead of a name tag having Jane, it said EMPTY. He’s talking about how much honesty that would bring to the world. To me, a name is just a name. I’m not my name. My name does not define me. But I guess since he’s in the naming business, he has to put lots of thought into this. I think if we all went by what truly defines us, it would be much too depressing. Plus what defines me fluctates and is dependent on lots of things and not just one. I’m not just one thing, and if you can be defined by one adjective, what does that say about you, and how boring!

I don’t think parents are teaching their children how to lie by naming them. I do wish that there was a way to know a baby’s personality before naming them though. What if you name your daughter Mary, but when she grows up she’s more of  a Chloe? Personally I have several issues with my name. First off, I was born in April, so I grew up with-and stilllllll get the occassional birthday/name joke. Then there’s the spelling change, which always trips people up, or causes mis-pronunciations. Then there’s my middle name-Sundae. As if my first name wasn’t bad enough, my mom made me a dessert. I probably could have dealt with one or the other, but both combined…. ugh. Now I like my name, I think it’s fun, but when I was younger I hated my name. I even changed it to Lisa for a few months when I was like 4.

Anyway, focus… what we go by is rarely what makes us go. I love this. I don’t know how to unpack it though. Is he saying we’re not our names? Aprille Sundae does not drive me. I’m not controlled by my name.

more Apex

There’s this sentence on page 90 that made me laugh out loud, a lot. “Criminy- an alien square of white on the skin, well that was outside the pale of even the albinoest albino.” And then the end of that paragraph with “Huzzah.” My roommate must have thought I was crazy going from completely silence to hysterical laughter. I still think it’s funny. Partially because I say criminy and I also add -est and -y to words to make them be a part of speech that they’re not. That probably only makes sense to me. Whatever. Ok but being more of a critical thinker on this passage… by the makers of Apex trying to universalize their product, they were in fact alienating even the white people. The clear part worked fine for everyone, but then in the center was this whiteness that was even too white for people without pigment in their skin. I think the author is saying that whiteness is in the center of everything, everything is surrounded on white supremacy. If the purpose of a bandage is to hide your hurt but it sticks out against your skin, it’s not really fulfilling its job. It’s making it more obvious. So by just “slapping a band aid” on the issue of race is actually bringing more focus to it instead of diverting that attention. And for this band aid to not conform to even the white people says a lot. Most of our culture caters to white people, or the assumption of someone being white, so for a product to alienate them is a big deal.

I also like the part on page 108 about how the commercial’s tagline becomes everyone’s excuse. “Why ya drinking so much Larry? Hides the Hurt.” This product’s slogan has worked its way into every day life as an excuse for people’s vices. By saying (blank) hides the hurt almost makes that pain more obvious. If you have to hide something in the first place, it means you’re ashamed of it… and then “hides the hurt” means whatever that vice is is your way of escaping. I’ll do this because it makes the hurt go away. This is sad. Not pathetic sad, but makes me sad sad.

Apex, so far so strange

Well I feel like there’s a lot going on but there isn’t enough information about all that’s happening for me to keep it straight.  I feel like Whitehead is just giving little snippets of what is going on.  It kinda makes me crazy! I do like how the narrator is a namer though, I’ve always wanted to be a namer myself. I name pretty much everything in my life from my car to my plants. Anyway… despite my confusion it reads quite quickly. And I like his subtle use of humor. This is the one book where I don’t have a clear picture in my head of what things should look like. No mental image at all. I find this strange, and I think it’s due to the fact that there aren’t enough details for me.

I like the idea of the Apex being an extended metaphor for race.  Apex hides the hurt. Does this mean a band aid is a type of cure for racism? The section where he talks about the different shades of the apexes(?) makes me think that if they make band aids that blend in with your skin, no one will notice the difference.

I also think that just changing the name of the town won’t change the town itself. It might give the people a new sort of energy or appreciation, but it’s not going to change them.

paper stuff

For my paper I’m focusing on Fight Club the book and the relationship between the author, characters, and reader.  In terms of terms, I like Lyotard’s idea of meta-narratives, and I also like Jameson’s waning affect.  Themes I like are the theme of the self and I’m also intrigued by honesty.  How truthful is the narrator?  The narraotr is a schizophrenic in Fight Club so how do I trust what he’s saying?  How accurate is his own description of himself?  I think there are many truths about the same thing, and one doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.  Things can be grey.  Is this the point of postmodernism?  To make people realize we live in a grey world?  While I understand this idea and accept it, I still wonder about truth and authenticity.  Another theme I like is subject vs object.

I’m so drawn to Fight Club, maybe because I like me some crazies, I don’t know.  When we were reading it I would see Fight Club-esque things in my life, pretty much on a daily basis.  Or something would happen and I’d be like, Tyler?  Or I even started seeing the squirrels in my neighborhood as members of Project Mayhem… whoa.

The questions I have are about the level of honesty in the text.  Who are the characters, narrators, authors being honest with?  I always want to know why.  Why is this considered postmodern.  There aren’t even any solid boundaries of what makes something postmodern.  Did the author sit down and say, “Hmm I think I’ll write a postmodern novel…”  I guess I want to know if it was a conscious decision, or if it just happened.

blah blah Richard Powers

So all in all, I did not enjoy this book as much as the others.  I just wish he would have gotten to his point sooner, or given some hint as to what his point was earlier in the novel.  I didn’t like the feeling of it being coded and having to double read everything.  I also didn’t like the thought of him working us as readers, like we were the machines.  I did like the twist about the bet though, how the test was really about Powers and how attached he gets and how he attaches meaning to make things more than they are.  So I guess that kind of balances out Powers the author treating his readers like machines.

Nikki Lee and Galatea 2.2

Our Nikki Lee discussion in class brought up some interesting issues.  I like how we came to the conclusion that if it were a white person, not a minority, making this critique it would have come out completely different.  I like her style and I think she makes a very interesting and important point about our society.  I think she’s very original.  Before this I’d never heard or seen anything like what she does. 

As for Galatea 2.2… I liked it more before we started talking about it.  Today’s class just made me more confused and kinda made my head hurt.  Unless my idea of the neural net is too basic, I didn’t find it all that confusing.  Or maybe I just didn’t look deep enough the first time.  What I find more confusing than the neural net is all the abbreviations and what they mean.  But I guess it wouldn’t be considered postmodern if there wasn’t some kind of ambiguity in this novel.  When I first started reading it I was completely lost and had no idea what was going on.  I might as well have been dropped in the middle of Mongolia and told, “well, you’re on your own now… have fun with that.”  But as I read on things are starting to work themselves out.  It’s so weird how I’m not completely in love with this book, but I find myself compelled to read on. 

mid-term self evaluation

 My Blog list

1- which am I? 8/4

2- written on the body 8/9

3- all you need is love 8/10

4- end of written on the body 10/11

5- Lyotard 10/11

6- FC movie 10/15

7- FC 1-6 10/15

8- FC 7-19 10/15

9- end of FC 10/15

10- Jamesonnnn 10/15

11- Cindy Sherman 10/15

12- Hutcheon 10/15

Part 1-

I think I’ve pretty much come to terms that there is no right or concrete definition of postmodernism. That I’m ok with, I guess my issue with the books we have read so far is just why the author chose to do things in a certain way. With Winterson, at first my issue with why keep the narrator genderless? Eventually I came to terms with it and gave myself my own explanation since she clearly wasn’t dishing it out. With Fight Club it also bothered me why the narrator was nameless, and the only name he had was Tyler, but that wasn’t even him. These issues intrigue me about postmodernism. The question that keeps popping up is the author’s intentions and decisions.

In my post, “written on the body,” I said, “i’ve been going back and forth on deciding if the narrator a man or a woman, and i’m beginning to think that maybe it’s both, maybe she took elements of both and put them into this one genderless character to keep her audience guessing. at first i just assumed it was a woman because why keep it hidden if it was a man?” Here I am sorting out my thoughts on why Winterson keeps the narrator genderless, and I am making my own explanation of it so I can understand her point better. Even though these things are obviously ambiguous, I still feel the need to have some sort of explanation in order to keep focused on the book and not keep questioning myself on whether it is a man or a woman. If I didn’t have some sort of answer for myself it would constantly be on my mind. So I just tell myself, hey it’s all right, it’s a man and a woman and it’s neither. In my second sentence I’m trying to figure out her intention. I state my assumption and then ask the author what her intention was.

Another area in which I’m inquisitive about the author’s intention is towards the end of Fight Club. In my post, so cleverly titled, “end of FC,” I said, “To me though, the narrator seems the most sane once he realizes he’s insane. It’s the only time he ever shows affection towards Marla and the only time he seems to care about what happens to other people…But it also makes me wonder why he wants to change everything. I think he knows he’s screwed either way, so why turn yourself in? Why does he all of a sudden care? Does he finally realize he has feelings for Marla?” In this passage I am sorting through my thoughts about what the narrator is going through once he realizes he created Tyler. So, he realizes he’s insane, that he’s created project mayhem, and done all these horrible things, and I just need to know why he reacts the way he does. I need to know why he decides to turn himself in instead of just keeping with the flow, or completely giving over to Tyler, or running away. Why did the author choose to go in this direction? Does he want to turn this around in order to be with Marla? Before Tyler the narrator could care less about what happened to him, he used to pray for his plane to crash, but now that he’s created all this chaos and destruction, he cares. It just seems very bizarro to me.

Part 2-

I think one of my best posts was “Lyotard.” In that post I related his idea of meta-narratives to The Matrix, which means I incorporated it into my own way of thinking. I completely grasped the idea and related it into something in my world. I also started taking some of his ideas and making them my own, trying to make them work for me. I also mixed his ideas with some of Jameson’s to be comfortable with my own definition of postmodernism. I also raised questions about his ideas and related it to art and questioned definitions.

Another post of mine that I like is the “end of FC.” I really dove into my thoughts about the book and started questioning the author’s intentions and decisions. This is also another example of how I incorporated the ideas in Fight Club into my own world. I made a comparison of the narrator figuring out he was Tyler to the road runner and coyote cartoons. I liked that comparison and it shows how I understand the text and can put it into my own terms.

When it comes to comments, it’s pretty obvious that I’m horrible at it. I’m pretty sure that I’ve only commented a couple times and I think I said something like, “yeah that sounds awesome! I totally agree.” I am awful at keeping up with this blog stuff. At the beginning of the semester I thought I would love it, and I do think it will be great for my thought process if I actually did it. I find myself having more conversations in my head with myself than actually writing it down. I need to start doing this.

As far as another classmate’s best blog, the first one that pops out in my head is Hannah’s blog about her brother called, “My brother, Marx, and baseball.” I thought she made good connections between the Malpas reading and her own life, making sense of it all. It also shows how she understand and thinks about postmodernism with the example she gives of her brother. I have people in my life I consider to be postmodern but I would have never thought of using them as an example in my blog.

Hutcheon

I liked Hutcheon’s idea of mimesis and how we assume that there is a “real” out there to represent.  I guess when I think about it there really isn’t anything totally true or real out there.  The way we are, live our lives, dress, eat, love is just a result of what our society tells us is right and wrong.  If we are representing our lives with literature, art, music… then what are we really representing?

Cindy Sherman

When I first thought about this assignment I thought I would be totally into it because I love art and photography.  Then when I was actually looking at her photos I didn’t know what to think.  It was just totally over my head.  I think for this type of assignment hearing other people’s thoughts on it get my own thoughts going.  Normally with books I can motivate myself but this was a tough one, which surprises me.