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Mr. Piekarski,

You left us so fast today! There was no resolve to our class, but I can almost bet that was not without reason since, as rhetoric has shown us, most everything is with purpose. Very clever Mr. P. Way to make us come to your movie showing. I'll have to save my guess for Sunday.

Thank you, thank you, for an amazing class. Your ethos as a professor and as a human being made this class a fertile garden for personal growth and budding. You Sir successfully created an environment that made us/me feel comfortable to speak and to voice our/my thoughts, and if our fruitful, revolutionary, discussions aren't proof enough well then, you're just a horrible observer. Last year I saw you as a very witty, occasionally sarcastic, type of character that knew his material well and got us to learn quickly. But this year I was able to see a genuine warmth in your character that didn't convey with irony but spoke rather in the Vietnamese manner of speech without irony. It was refreshing.

I learned about Vietnam. I learned about Rhetoric. I learned about the Rhetoric of Vietnam, and on another level, I definitely learned a lot about myself in very tangible ways. This will help me on my journey and direction in life. Thank you for this, your advise, your knowledge, and your kindness.

Hmm White Russians. A Big Lebowski thing I'm guessing. I gotta get to them pearly white gates, so I suppose that means I have to see this movie!

You never cease to amaze me, so I reckon you'll continue to do so. I'm ready. Show me your tricks, magician. 

An Inconvenient Truth

1. Ethos
Gore tells us that he's been working on the global warming issue since he was in college with his professor Robert Revelle.
--> So believe him because he has experience on this topic since 1960-something

2. Humor
* Jokes about losing the presidency.
* "The student went on to become a drug addict and a n'vr-do-well. The teacher went on to become science adviser in the current administration."
-->serves to keep the audience engaged and interested.
-->asserts Gore's ethos as a well-rounded character who isn't just a lame glacier hugger
"you've heard of off the charts" when following the increasing CO2 level in the electric platform lift
--> really wants to emphasize the point of the super high CO2 level as a significant matter!

3. Visual images
Pictures of a pretty blue and green earth juxtaposed to melting glaciers, empty lakes.
--> used to make us feel anxious over immediate danger

4. Logos
--> Gore's visual graphs that represent trends of CO2 and temperature levels as they've increased throughout the years as evidence of global warming.

5. Pathos
Juxtaposition of images
ex. glacier in Argentina 1928: big white beautiful.
versus the same glacier in Argentina 2004: almost entirely gone

6. More Logos
"When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer because it traps more heat from the sun inside."

7. Ethos
* Gore's appearance: wearing a suit, freshly clean shave, nice hair, shiny shoes, professional presentation

8. Pathos
Brings up Katrina
--> wants us to get emotional through the images of people suffering and voice over of a man in distress.

9. Gore presents the material using language that's easy to comprehend. And if we don't understand his simple explanations, the Simpson's simplifies his point even further.
--> Gore has the audience in mind and wants everyone to understand.

10. POLAR BEARS!
The best rhetorical device in my opinion.
--> Gore seems to ask without asking, "You wouldn't want to make a cute, fluffy, polar bear drown now would you?!
----------

SOLVED

I'm ready for my four guesses.
Scratch that, keep your four guesses.
All I need is one.

Be amazed.

Interesting PBS show on the expanding powers of the executive and it's constitutionality. The show's kinda long (three parts) but you should watch it if you have time.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10262007/watch.html

I'm ready for home. You know I'll hardly have time to breath before it's time to come back again . But it'll still be a nice and very much needed break. I'm ready for the end of Fall07 ...

Taps

I only have a purely emotional reaction to share.

When we watched Maya Lin in class on Tuesday I cried. None of the other movies that we have seen so far have produced in me a moment of such intense reaction the way this documentary has. Full Metal Jacket was disturbing, the killing and shooting in Platoon was upsetting, and Hearts and Minds made me cringe and disapprove of an American government I already disapproved of. The images in all these movies were horrifying, all the killing had the appearance of being real, and the fighting was violent and disgusting, but in all their horror, my eyes never watered. All it took in Maya Lin was one scene after Maya spoke to everyone at the Vietnam Memorial. After all the speeches and the ceremony the film shifted shifted to images of people from the crowd approaching Maya and thanking her. After or during that scene (I can't remember the exact point), over the humming of the crowd pierced the anthem of the dead- Taps. And I, I am shot. Taps continues to play and the camera shifts over to a long shot of the black memorial and at the bottom of the screen a tiny American flag propped up against the wall. What really got to me in this scene wasn't so much the seeing- the images were far from shocking or grotesque- instead it was the 3 note lament of a single haunting bugle that made me feel. I could actually feel it resonance in me as the sound came out of the bugle, passed the speakers, and into my ears. 3 notes, 3 notes and one bugle and I've felt more for a moment that I have in an entire semesters worth of watching movies and documentaries on the Vietnam War. That song is no ordinary song. It's not even a song, it's a a lament, a sad, sad, requiem for the dead. It's pain, it is suffering, it's agony, all of it in a single line of music played on one horn. When I heard Taps played in class, I remembered instantly the funeral I went to this summer for my mother's uncle (may he rest in peace) that served in the military during WWII. I never knew the man. I had no emotional attachment, nothing to cry about. I was there to pay my respects as a relative and to support the family. I never knew the man, but 21 rounds and 3 notes later I wept for him. I felt the vibrations of bullets penetrating through the air, the crack of the barrel, the perforating sound of the horn shake my very being. It was like I could feel the presence of death and it gripped onto me and pulled tears and muffled whimpers out of me. It was like I experienced, in a very small but very real way, war, grief, and death. There is something terribly haunting and melancholy about that 3 note melody and when I heard it in class, I relived the sensations of the gun shots, the whizzing bullets, the Taps, the weight of the air heavy with grief.

I'm not done. I'll finish this later.

Answers

1) Be the best poster you can be
2) [sic] is used when you quote a passage from some text verbatim and you know that the original had a grammar or spelling mistake, or some misuse of the language. To indicate that the mistake was not your own but the original author's, you put a [sic] next to the mistake.

Re: Midterm Feedback

Mr. Piekarski,

I hold your word in high regard. I know what I need to do.

Concerning my project:
A presentation about rhetorically interesting images/posters/war propaganda sounds good. But I'd also like to make my OWN image and I promise you it would be a thoughtful, constructive, rhetorical one. I'm still figuring out what I want my message to be but I know it would be in response to Iraq and paralleled to Vietnam. Permission to do this as well? Your thoughts?

I think that's a wrap. Oh! M.I.A., two mo' dayz! Whoop!

Eva

Midterm Feedback

I don't know if my blogs have gotten any better. I think I've become more afraid of them because you Mr. Piekarski are looking at them. I know this sounds stupid, but sometimes when I've blogged my heart out towards the beginning of the school year and got nothing in response it was disheartening. I know I would say a lot and God you might have been thinking, Eva stfu already, but I NEED FEEDBACK.

Eva, my most humble apologies as I certainly never intended to become a looming presence of doom. I was also under the impression that our post-class talks were giving you feedback that they would become redundant had I also put them into words. Know that I read and cherish and savor each and every word of your soul in its bloggerly incarnation.

Know also, that I think your personal blog is one of the most adventurous and creative in class, and that your comfort level with looking at the world through multiple forms of media (and rhetoric) is a great strength which you should begin thinking about harnessing and developing further.

I am also most pleased with your class participation and the energy you bring to the topics at hand. Your class presence is always felt and is an integral part of our little humble community.

And as per our post-class discussions, I think you know what you need to do to improve your analytical thinking and writing on the RAs and I am ready to assist you with more candid talks and revision opportunities. Only say the word(s).

So, in conclusion (ha ha!) I'd like to reiterate that your approach to learning, and your ethos as a student and as a person is most excellent. Your RAs still have a full month to improve to the next level. And I imagine the project and how you present it will be a super treat for all of us. You seem to be fascinated by the visual rhetoric of posters... How about a presentation about the most rhetorically interesting images/posters/war propaganda?

So right now, I think you're right. You're at a B. But sneaking into the A territory is not impossible. If you will it, Dude, it is no dream.

According to catholicism...

...envy is one of the seven deadly sins. But I can't help, this thought just came to me, but be sinfully jealous of your position as a creeping pixie that crawls into our minds! Bah! But I think, how beautiful! How wonderful to see what we are thinking, to watch us grow, to learn from us. You get a direct channel into not only our thoughts but our feelings and it's such a personal view of each of us. I suppose that depends on how much people say and what they say when they blog to Slothrop, God (and I say God because you in a sense see all, observe all) of the Vietnam Rhetoric Class. I couldn't help but feel vulnerable at first. I wonder if people feel that. I wonder if other people in our class think about just how much should they say, and what should they limit or not limit this personal blog to. For instance at some point I was blabbing, okay no I wont say that, I was blogging about me and where I came from, but i felt it relevant to an understanding of my perspective. (omgz this is like Tim O'Brien shiat right here!!! I'm forming your view so you can see my,.... dun dun dun *hold your breath*, reality and point of view!) Is that a bad thing? Is that off topic? But already I'm off topic from what I was originally posting at the beginning of this entry. What a beautiful thing I think, Mr. Piekarski, what a fragile crystal you hold, what a privilege (that must be cherished, and by no means am I saying you don't) to teach us. The fruits of teaching? Is it wonderful to watch us grow? [the answer is yes. do i need to say that? I could of probably done without the commentary in the brackets. commenting on my own commentary. narrative my own narrative.] :)


FIN.

WTF IS REALITY

It seems like so many of the texts we read/watch/listen to revolve around a question of reality. It's all about point of view. I know we've talked about "reality" and "truth" in class before, but what is real, what is the truth as we defined it Mr. Piekarski? Tim O'Brien told us what was real didn't matter and if we began to ask if it really happened, we missed the point all together. But what is the point? Everyone seems to have their own "truths" their own "realities".

O.K. so "reality" would be like say, what what a detatched third party, non-biased, observer would see, like God or the Universe almost? And whatever body else down on earthy-poo is doing and everything they have to say or everything they feel, is just a point of view? Can we still say that their point of view is a certain truth to them?

I'm very confused. So no one is right, no one is wrong. There's no black or white, no "this is truth and this is not" type of thing. Just shades of grey, "perceived personal truths" and points of view.

BLAH BLAH BLAAH BLAH BLHLLABLHALKJLSKJD;FASJD;LFKAJSLDKFJ

************ okay: QUESTION NOT RELATED TO CLASS:
what does this mean or indicate when placed after a quoted passage:
[sic]
I'm hedging my bets that you Mr. Piekarski, ze reader/writer whizzz, know what this is.

P.S. You're a cruel cruel thug for allowing Halloween to fall on a Wednesday. I'm not bitter.

SUCCESS!!!

5/1/03:




03/06/2006:

creepy

An hour and 38 minutes into Hearts and Minds between the scence where Nixon is talking to the former POWs at a dinner party and the scene where the Vietamese man laments the loss of his daughter, is the creeeeeeeepppiiiest scene ever. After we see the bombs dropping and hear them whistle to the ground, the picture shifts to black and white and the only thing playing in the back ground is a high pitched eerie tone and the sound of remote cold wind. We get a black and white picture of complete destruction, a town that is now nothing except shards of bamboo and dirt, and then a close up of a womans face contorted with pain and tears. We can't hear her cry but the silence seems to magnify her pain as we listen to the high pitched whistle and the sound of desolate wind. And next we see the source of her lament- her dead children. This scene makes me feel like it's the end of the world! It down right scares the shit out of me. I recognize Davis wants us to feel for this woman and her pain and I acknowledge that I do. Davis's rhetoric has worked? Anyway.... craziest creepiest scene ever. Did you not find it disturbing?

EVAluating EVA

WON: ...that my RAs at first aren't going to be anywhere near perfect. And to perfect my work, to make that ideal pot, I gotta throw a lot of pots. Which is why I think it's awesome (as much as I hate it at 2a.m. the morning before it's due) that you're making us write so many RAs! Hmm that doesn't help me any except that maybe I'm asserting my ethos as a truthful character... I've learned that nike really knows what they're talking about when they say "Just do it." You gotta put your RA out there, write it out and stop being afraid of it! I've learned through confirmation in my brain piece that a second draft works wonders on my papers!!! I've learned that past 12a.m. I can't really think anymore. Oh yes... And I've learned about Vietnam. And I've learned that what I'm doing now as a major might not before me. In general I've learned a lot about myself and this class has been the medium of my growth.

TOO: Learning more of.... I'd like to learn more about structuring our writing. How to go about writing. But I think you answered my question already today when you said, "You wanna get better at writing, you gotta read." I think Mr. E.B. White is gonna be my new best friend. Clarity is exactly what I need, and our friend E.B. White apparently has truck loads of it. I want to learn more about other people's writing, more essays, so I can mimic and find my writing style. Yeah, I want to learn what my writing style is and my answer is: read and write.

TREE: RAs RAs RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Specifically, getting detailed on a thesis and pin pointing what it is. I think I fight myself too much when I'm trying to write RAs. But I think sample essays and sample analyses are the answer to my question.

FLOUR: MORE DISCUSSION. I also would like more from YOU. I'd like it if you told us what YOU thought after we finished analyzing the texts on our own. I get to hear and read what everyone else is thinking, but rarely do I get to hear YOUR take on everything. I understand why this is, you want to give us room and time to discover things and come to our own conclusions, but I'm curious: what do you think about these texts?

FIVE: Useful: That excerpt from our course packets that showed us how to evaluate movies. That was awesome because it gave us the tools for movie analysis by telling us about point of view, camera angles, themes, characters and then it demonstrated how to use these tools by showing us samples essays.

SIX: HEARTS AND MINDS HEARTS AND MINDS HEARTS AND MINDS. HEY AND DID I MENTION HEARTS AND MINDS?!?!?
POR QUE? Because I've watched parts of it at least 5 times and I discover more and more what the message is. But I suppose if I saw any other movie or read other texts I'd discover new thing about them. But for some reason I'm drawn to Hearts and Minds emotionally and because it seems to have so much craft and I feel I dont just see a new face or object in the filmed I didn't see before, but instead I discover a new argument each time within the greater arguement.

My Preformace:
1.) Blogs: Hmm I've missed a few times. I put more effort into some blogs than others but I think progressively, my public blogs have become more insightful and thoughtful versus just blabbing off about what I think and not backing my statements up. Personal blog is well, just that- 'tis mine. I don't know what to say. I think it's great because it's me and if were to put ME down that would just hurt, but that doesn't mean that I can't critique myself. You... I don't know if my blogs have gotten any better. I think I've become more afraid of them because you Mr. Piekarski are looking at them. I know this sounds stupid, but sometimes when I've blogged my heart out towards the beginning of the school year and got nothing in response it was disheartening. I know I would say a lot and God you might have been thinking, Eva stfu already, but I NEED FEEDBACK. I want to know what am I doing well with, what am I doing bad on, so I can improve myself, my writing, my ability to think critically, my approach to analysis. I want to better myself! I started off very emotionally in my blogs. I responded with immediate feelings, and observations, and there were lengthy, long winded. And then I moved to okay no, I need some detachment. And I responded visually and then went into some analysis with the response to Letter to America movie. I think they are getting better in the sense that I have become more reflective, and it helped me the other day when you responded to my post on Tim O'Brien. I loved that. But I feel more withdrawn. Or maybe not. I don't know. GIVE ME SOME DIRECTION OH CAPITAN DE RHETORIC!!!

2.) DISCUSSIONS: ahhh I love them. I realize that discussion is part of our grade and any time it's a part of my grade in any of my classes, I make sure to speak up despite being shy or afraid because well, my grade is on the line. But in this class I can't help but say things, I can't help respond to them verbally, and I can't help that I have so many question for people when they respond in class the way they do. I like to know what everyone is thinking and why they think it so I can see how to approach my writing or my way of thinking. I love the collaboration of though because I get hear new perspectives and think about things I might never have noticed or thought about otherwise. I get a different view on everything from hearing everybody in class. I think I deserve point here because my curiosity and my response to texts take a very tangible, audible, visual form that show, Eva does do at least a little bit of thinking now and then.

3.) RAs: hmmm biggest weakness. I'm able to respond verbally, blog-like-ly, visually, but when it comes to writing and putting all of my thoughts into a formal setting (our RAs) I have trouble. You hit it right now the nail when you told me, You have a love of all things (very true. I find everything fascinating!), but Eva, you need to zoom in and focus in on one or two things in your RAs instead of trying to cover everything (so true. I even feel overwhelmed because I feel like there is soo much to say and I don't know where to begin.) But I'd like to say that I think I did awesome on this last RA that we are supposed to wring another draft on. I wish you could see the first draft and tell me how I could improve or if I'm completely wrong (which could be very right) in thinking that my RA has gotten any better.

4.) GRADE: Because I am still struggling with getting this RA thing down, and because I haven't turned in 3 RAs which are supposed to benefit me (but I didn't do them because I couldn't figure out where to start and when I did it was too late, but who needs excuses since "the road to hell is paved with good intentions").... I deserve no more than a B. And I say a B and not a C+ because, I HAVE been thinking, I'm active in class, I'm active with our texts outside of class. I really think about our texts and respond to them emotionally and thoughtfully and I overcome my fear of speaking or being wrong by voicing my thoughts and not becoming discouraged when I am wrong. That Mr. Piekarski takes guts. People don't like being wrong but I'm completely open to it. I want to be corrected when I am wrong. I want criticism because it will only help me! And I want to improve!!!

5.) O.K. so when you said Eva, "I see that you are a very visual person" you couldn't be closer to truth. For my final project I was thinking big posters, crafted with a message, a meaning, a truth that I'm finding as we go further into this class. So I've been feeding myself with the Wall Street journal to bring immediate relevance to the topics we find in class. I'm pulling from rhetoric as well... How do I not only craft my message visually, but how do I convince my audience that the message in my poster ia important. I have examples of posters/art that I find from the internet and good ol' Corrbit that I stole from my bro to help me with the word aspect. What would be cool is that I'll be incorporating words (like we do our R.A.s) and images to convey a message that speaks without speaking. It's going to be tough but I could work it out, and it will be awesome. It has to be because I won't accept anything less than that. BAM. What do you think? I'd like to discuss it with you and get some.... dun dun dun... (r u ready for this) FEEDBACK. ;] But I suppose my end of the deal is that I need to produce more R.A.s.

What say YOU Mr. P?

Also, Fabulous play list this morning.

YOU KNOW IT!!!

Tres (leches): I had nooo idea M.I.A. was to be playing here, in Austin, on campus! Flippin' fantastic! I'm soooo going! If you haven't figured out who you're going with, come with me!?!

I gots my ticket. You gots yours?

Hearts and Minds

I rented Hearts and Minds and I've watched about an hour of it so far. I thought it might be better for me to have a first run through on my own so I can start to think more critically about it when we all watch it together Monday night.

1:02 hrs into the movie there's this scene showing some footage of the Viet Cong viciously rounding up Vietnamese civilians in Saigon. The frame shifts to one of the soldiers holding a Vietnamese man at gun point and effortlessly without any hesitation he pulls the trigger. The body plops to the floor like a marionette gone lax and in an almost Quentin Tarantino-esque moment blood is shooting out of this dead man's head like a science experiment. I watched this brief scene at least 4 times. I was in awe. Honestly, I thought the squirting action from a fatal wound was just, a Hollywood thing. The exaggeration of constant gore and blood in Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction with severed limbs and squirting artery's that make you feel like it's almost funny, only affirmed my view that this there's no way this kind of gore truly happens in real life. But then I see this man shot in the head who falls dead to the ground and so perfectly on cue, his life gushes through his head hole, all of it unscripted and caught on tape and assembled in this documentry. All I could think and feel was, damn this shit is for real.

I'm beginning to understand this notion of "what is it we DON'T see". Up until now, I've NEVER in my life seen that happen to any human being- on the news, on the internet, on tv, much less in real life. People would flip the fuck out if they saw that. They'd complain and probably start a hissy fit over all the in appropriate gore on a public T.V. station. But when it's in a movie and it's fake and not real, oh that's FINE, it's a-okay . It's okay because in the back of your head you have that tiny bit of comfort knowing that it's not real, that it was just some actor with kool-aide jetting out of his head who's pretending to be dead for the sake of dramatic moment.

I think if people SAW some real carnage, if we saw severed limbs, real gushing head wounds, if we even saw body bags of dead men fighting in Iraq or a ticker on the bottom right corner with the death count on it, maybe we'd wake up and realize how much we aren't getting. Maybe we'd realize that a lot of what's going on is in conflict with what we value. Maybe we'd see that ignorance is not bliss. But who is to blame? Is it us the people watching TV, or the people who provide or prevent the availability of the images we see. If we could see some of these things, maybe we'd realize why we should give a damn about war and about politics and about the media that seems to have an agenda and rhetoric of its own.

Where are the body bags? Where are the faces of everyone that's died in the war we are fighting now? Why can't we see the gore, the death, the blood, the anguish? Where is the cold hard reality and why can't we see it?

Chwast, Seymor End Bad Breath 1968

reply/unintentional-essay

Yo yo yo, check it:
Uno: Easy, you just have to be me. Cool magazine covers though dontcha think?
Dos: You have my word, I will make it to your movie showing! You can't say no one showed up because Severin did and Severin is not "no one." As for the movie showing date/time, it would depend on when we need to have the next movie assignment watched by don't you think? Is there a movie that you want us to watch by next week and if so then I think this weekend would be fine. I could figure out times for the peeps from there. Of course this would all depend on when you get your DVD playa and if you'll even make all of this happen! You know Yoda once said "there is no try, there is only do." Mr. Piekarski don't just try making the movie night, Dooo It.
Dos "beh": I'm already on the well deserved nomination.
Tres (leches): I had nooo idea M.I.A. was to be playing here, in Austin, on campus! Flippin' fantastic! I'm soooo going! If you haven't figured out who you're going with, come with me!?! Jes var nice gypsy.
Cuatro: As for the pelicula, I thought it was pretty fabulous. I'm pretty sure the producer of this film/documentary-ish production did not think Vietnam was happy time and didn't want us to think so because of the emphasis on death and the individual. There was the image overlay in white lettering of the death count number including the date and the letter readings of young men predicting or hoping that they wouldn't die followed by the same white lettering confirming their death. I noticed at some point when the letter reading had briefly stopped, the camera zoomed in on the faces of at least 10 different men all looking either very hopeless or very stern. The close ups along with the reading of these letters, I suppose wanted to personalize and make real to us the death of these boys and in this way convince us that the Vietnam War sucked, especially when (as we discover through the letter readings) most of these soldiers didn't know what/why they were fighting.
Cinco: Yo soy la super guawo y la mejor "numba' one stunna."

Eva

Aiight. One: how'd you make your blog page so spiffy? Two: when the spaceship DVD player arrives, you bet I'd like to offer movie night again. But it's so lonely when no one shows up... If you'd like to do the figuring-out-of-what-date-and-time-works-best-for-everyone business, and then get back to me with what you find, I'll try to make it happen. Two B: If you wanna lend a hand in trying to recuperate some of the funds it took to rescue the spaceship DVD player from the captive aliens, via the avenue I mentioned to Cory, by all means, Eva, the glory and power are yours. Three: M.I.A. in concert on November 3rd! Four: What'd you think of the film we saw today?

both Tim O'Briens seem to think that surrealism is a hard and exact truth, so why can't we say that Apocolypse Now is a kind of truth? Just because its the truth as it seems to a particular person, can we say it is not real, ....real and true to them?! Can we not say that reality and truth is relative????

There is no such thing as "Truth," despite what the Main Building Tower tells us. To say that "surrealism" is a hard and exact truth is playing with language, not much more. The second part of what you wrote is much more sensible: reality and truth are relative, and so much depends on perspective. If there existed no one to perceive it, would the world still exist? All we have are our own perceptions, which are muddled and particular to our own experiences and expectations. That's why for O'Brien, it's essential that we explore the power of the imagination and what it can tell us about ourselves; which, according to him, is often much more than the "hard exact truth" can. Whatever that is.

Johny and Bob sure know how to write and sing a song, now don't they?

Connections

Okay so author of The-Things-They-Carried-Tim O'Brien says, (now check this out Mr. Piekarski obviously great minds think alike baahahha) "...The pictures get jumbled...afterwards, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represent the hard and exact truth as it seemed" (p.71). BAM! Yeah, yeah, intro to Apocalypse Now ring a bell?! Mista Piekarski, both Tim O'Briens seem to think that surrealism is a hard and exact truth, so why can't we say that Apocolypse Now is a kind of truth? Just because its the truth as it seems to a particular person, can we say it is not real, ....real and true to them?! Can we not say that reality and truth is relative???? Help me out here, I need feed back!

Mr.



,


It is true! My first drafts are usually are my final drafts and when that happens they suck. I absolutely HATE looking back at my papers when I know they were mediocre essays and yeah, I have yet to look at the RA you handed back to me... I'm scared of it! And I do, I do lack structure and I find trouble putting my observations, interpretations, and ideas down in a coherent flow. I feel like sometimes I got something going on and I understand the meaning of whatever we are watching/hearing/reading as far as the deeper message goes, but then I feel like I really don't know...

However, the website looks awesome, and I think it will do me a world of good. It's the same one you used for your visual syllabus, isn't it? I'll definitely be using it tonight if I can figure out how it works in time. Now, off to attempt meh reepourtingz for jer class gypxie! Var Nice!!!

Eva,

First, a Borat hifie, yeeas, for great in-class comments. I like how you're not afraid to explore your thoughts, even at the risk of being wrong.

Two: have you tried mind-mapping software, like, http://www.nova-mind.com/ ? You've got a lot of smart thoughts, but they don't always synthesize until after the thing has been written. So I wonder what would happen if you "rough-drafted" with a fun software program NovaMind first, and then wrote your essay/analysis. I think the results would be stupendous.

they point the cannon at you

I find that as I write/blog I don't really know at first what the message of a work is. I don't know what the meaning of a song or a movie upon seeing it or hearing it. But as I start to play with the images, words, and sounds by transcribing them on paper or a word document I feel like the ideas just begin to form and connect on their own. It reminds me of clay. Without really knowing what I will build or create I take the medium and play with it by squishing in between my fingers and rolling it around until my manipulation of it seems to create and discover something on its own. The not knowing what I will create is frustrating but the frustration is, I suppose, the hatchery of thought.

That's all I got.

something I found on the interweb!

"Dylan is a songwriting legend who has turned destroying his own songs into a new art form. In concert, Dylan will often limit his vocal range to two or three notes, chop up the lyrical tempo and stretch out his ballads until they are barely recognizable even by the most die-hard fan. But though his voice was a bit more gravelly than usual, Dylan was in rare form on Tuesday, performing classics such as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” with more gusto than he has in several years."

from: http://www.mainstreetj.com/2006/04/26/387

I just found this on the internet. It makes me happy. So it is his new style.... wow... and that little snippet describes how he sung that night at ACL to the T(tee, tea?).

P.S. part two is under your post
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V

Jimi. Indeed. I knew that boy hit some Rock and Roll branches when he fell out of the tree.

A Bit 'Bout Bob & A lot About Me [part duex]

Please excuse my rambling. I'll try to make my entries more concise and to the point. I just get really excited sometimes and I go on and on. Bare with my please, I'm working on it. But then again, what are personal blogs for?

So as I said earlier, family is sacred to me. I grew up with the music my parents loved, listened, and connected with when they were in college. I grew up listening to the intense conversations my parents had about corrupt institutions, about war, politics of today and back when they were in school/college. So much of the rhetoric I hear/read in class, especially the music, I've heard at home (from Bob Dylan to Young, CCR to Hendrix, from corrupt politicians to lying governments)! And it excites me, it excites something in me! Such a small thing but I feel like it's a call to action. It reminds me of my values, the things I love, what I stand for, and it makes me want to act, to shake myself and other people from the slumber we're in. I connect with this class on a very personal level, as I connect with the love and words of my parents, and the wisdom and amazing rhetoric of artists like Dylan and Marvin Gaye among many others that responded to the Vietnam War.

You say Dylan is sacred to you. Mr. P I feel the same way. So does my mother. So do many other people who have connected with the words he wrote and sang. I think we can all learn a little from what he has to say. When I listen to Dylan, I feel immense love, profound truth, and an excitement that calls me to action. And I think about this generation- who will be next Bob Dylan, who will shake the foundations of our institution into consciousness? What role will my/our generation play in it? How will I contribute? On some level/s I feel like this class is awaking a dormant volcano in me, not a bad volcano, but a good one. Pretty fabulous.

I had to see Bob Dylan. I couldn't go on Friday or Saturday but I was definitely going on Sunday to see Bob. I knew ACL would be loud and hot and uncomfortable and bombarded with people and advertisement, but I had to see him. He came to this boisterous setting and I was going to thank him for coming by going to see him. After seeing Lucinda Williams I went straight to the Bob Dylan stage. He wasn't going to play until three hours later but I was determined it was well worth the wait. I wanted to experience the man and his band as close as I possibly could. When I got to the stage there were already quite a few people there, some of which were there for the My Morning Jacket that played before Dylan, but I knew most of them were probably there for Bob and not the other band.

It was a long wait, and I spent most of it standing. I sat down a few times even when My Morning Jacket was playing, but mostly I was on my feet. It was my first ACL experience, and it was hot, and the air was congested with everyone's body odor and various exhaled chemicals. I got to know everyone around me since, and in three hours of we became a temporary family. It was kinda cool. The crowd was filled with all kinds of people from different age groups and states and cultural background, and in general they were all really friendly. And after three hours of waiting out comes Bob and his band. Everyone is cheering and clapping. Right away the band starts playing and the crowd is psyched. I don't recognize any of the songs he plays. And only after the crowd cheers him back on for an encore, do I hear one song I know and it's "Like A Rolling Stone." It was the only song that he played from his old albums. The rest were from his newest album or from recent works he's put out- at least that's what some of the older folks around me said.

During the concert, he only spoke once to the crowd and it was right before his last few songs. He said "Thank you, friends", introduced the members in his band, and that was it. The rest of the time he sang and played. The majority of the time he played on his piano and not so much on the guitar. He did some harmonic playing and it definitely excited the crowd.

I was pretty damn close to the railing. Close enough to where I could see the wrinkles on his face and the small feathers in his hat. I had this intense impulse to want to hug him. I thought he was beautiful. His voice was deeper more crackled than usual and he sang in a different manner. I guess its a combination of his older age and his change in style. When he sang "Like A Rolling Stone" he wouldn't quite hold out the lyrics ("hoooowww does it feeeeeelll, like a complete unknown, like a rooooolling stooonne") like he does in his original recordings. Instead it was like he spoke the words real fast in a monotone that only fluctuated at the end of each phrase. So there was a lot of time in between lines where the instrumentals were just playing. It's hard for me to explain, but the point is his style of singing was different than any of his first few albums.

And when it was all over, I felt really sad. I felt Bob Dylan was growing old, and it's true he is. He's like 66 or 67. I was sad that his style was different- it had changed. It made me wish I could have seen him back in the 60's and I know wishing won't change anything, but I thought about it anyway. It made me think about growing old and about death. I found a little consolation in the fact that everyone dies, people get old, and change is part of life. My mom, I think partly to comfort me, told me "Eva, he's always been like that. He's always switched up the way he sings his songs. He used to change the versus of songs and add stanzas that weren't there originally." My mother's words helped a little, but I guess I find the best comfort in what Bob had to say, "The times they are a-changing."


I need to write my R.A. So much for being concise huh? ha. I'm out.

A Bit 'Bout Bob & A Lot 'Bout Me [part one]

I went to ACL so I could see two artists- Lucinda William and Bob Dylan. Lucinda was just as much of a cool cat in her songs as she was in person. She came out in boots, a cowboy hat, a black t-shirt with peace sign fingers on it, and a pair of shades. When she spoke to the crowd, it was slow and calculated like John Wayne but had a different twang to her voice that he did. Her sound is unconventional and unlike any other I'd ever heard before. Her sound is so different that the first time I heard her music when Pop played it on the stereo, I thought her voice was horrible and her songs annoying. I was also 13 at the time.

My musical taste has always been similar to my Mama's and Pop's. I guess there are many reasons for it. In part it's because, well, I've been listening to what they play since I was a little kid. And maybe because of it, it's partly why I have a strong affinity for music. There's something in it that brings me immense pleasure and joy. Maybe there's a biological factor to it, and somehow I inherited the "I love Rock and Soul!" gene.

My gringo dad has always loved his rock n' roll. One of his favorite groups was/is CCR and as a result my brother Jimi and I are more than familiar with Creedence. I'm not sure you know, but Jimi is my brother's nick name. His name is James Russel Stitts, but Mama, Pop, and I have always called him Jimi. Notice his name isn't "Jimmy" (like my grandfather's name whom my bro as named after) but instead it's "Jimi." What can I say, Mama was a Hendrix fan.

I love my family. They are my sacred unit. I can think of no greater love than the love I share for my family. I want to add that my mother and I are extremely close. I think my mother is beautiful, amazing, and wildly creative- a true visionary. I try to be humble when my friends tell me how beautiful, wonderful, and creative my mother is and how they wished they had a mom like mine. I try to be humble and say "Ahh you know, she's my Mom. You're mom is sweet too.", when really I think my Mom's a lot cooler and would never want any maternal replacement! Point is mother's are golden, family is sacred.

(I'm not done so don't draw your conclusions yet! I have yet to draw mine!)
To be continued....

Bob Dylan and Lucinda Williams

Okay I spent all my time on my public post

But I want to tell you all about my Dylan experience. So I will leave it for thursday...

AHHH I feel good. Life is good to me right now.
PING
PING!
PING!

Eva Christina Gonzalez e-Stitts

I expect a full report

on who else? Bob Dylan.

Confession: I didn't go. But mostly because I've spent so much time with Dylan in my heart and mind that I don't particularly like seeing him in boisterous contexts like ACL. He and his songs are sacred to me, and thus I like having him to my own private self. But so, regardless, I'd like to know what you thought of the concert. Details please.

I dig it, I dig it. Thank you! I will definitely be seeing Dylan on Sunday.

Aiight

Got your email. Take this weekend to catch up. And see Dylan. Don't worry about doing the Rhetorical analysis. You only have to do 10 out of the 14 or 15 assigned. So we'll just drop this one. Dig?

Before I respond to your post,

I'd like to ask Where yo rhetorical analysis at? It ain't among the pile of 13 others I received this morning, that's fo sho.

morning observations & reflections

on the radio: Jethro Tull's "Crossed-Eyed Mary"

Today's class, was definitely groovy.

So as soon as I left class today, feeling psyched and pumped from the powerful rhetoric in class, I stumbled upon something that stunned me like a remote affirmation.

I was headed for the Perry Castaneda Library to get some studying in before my Cal class. I'm walking from the FAC towards the tower and make my way around the hedges until I'm directly south of the tower with the view of the Texas capitol ahead of me.

I come down the steps not really paying attention to my surrounding (There can't be anything new and different! I mean I see all of this everyday!!). It's drizzling and I'm focused on getting to the library. I'm reflecting on what we went over in class and everything I need to do for to-day.

After I descend I veer to the left so I'm on the side of the 6-pack where Mezes is at. I take a look around and to my right where people usually lay in the grass, are flags. U.S. Flags. Rows and Rows of U.S. Flags. The miniature kind that people on the side of the streets wave around during a 4th of July parade and the kind that get placed on the headstones of people in the military who've passed on. These star spangled banners are in a perfect rectangle spaced evenly apart from one another in almost perfect rows and coulombs. This rectangle of evenly spaced red, white, and blue flags stretches from top to bottom with a grassy green border all around it. I stop and just stare. I walk through the cold, wet grass with my eyes fixated. I walk down the length of the field until I'm at the end and I look back up at all the rows of flags.

I'm so taken aback I want to take a picture. I have no camera with me, but wait I have camera phone! So I pull it out from my pocket. I see the display and it reads "September 11, 2007 9:35am" and I think about the Rows of flags. U.S. flags in perfect rows and coulombs in the center of this vibrant green field of living grass, in between the bronze casting of George Washington and the Capitol of Texas, surrounded by liberal arts buildings. And the rain. It's raining, the air is cool and quite, and today is 9/11.

Clearly, these are just observations I'm making. And it was obvious that these flags served as a reminder of what happened during 9/11 and if you as the observer didn't pick up on that there was a small black sign east of the menagerie of flags that had something to the effect of "remember 9/11" on it to let you know what was going on. But what fascinated me about this memorial was the fact that you can take from it what you will. You can form it into whatever message you like. You can personalize it and make it yours. To some these flags could symbolize all the people that died in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. To others it could symbolize not only the people who died during 9/11, but the lives of thousands of other Americans that died as a consequence of it during our hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and later Saddam Hussein. And further still these flags might stimulate thinking about war in general, more specifically Iraq and it's tie to 9/11 or if there was even a tie between these events in the first place. Maybe these flags placed in an academic setting that promotes thought and research want us to not only remember 9/11 but to think about it and question it.

You mentioned in your post today that our personal blog could be about "connections you make between the texts and things you're thinking about in the real non-classroom world". And as soon as I step out of class into the non-classroom world I encounter a wonderful, powerful, visual display of rhetoric. It was amazing. It made me feel like I am in the right place in my life in all regards and matters. It was an affirmation of the self that is I!

All in all, I think today was pretty cool.

Eva


Today's bad ass song for the day (I think it's pretty revelatory to the class):
"Fortunate Son" by Creedance Clearwater Revival

Is that right?

Where's your evidence?

I....

fucking rock