Final Blog

     I decided to go ahead and write my final blog today since i will not have access to the internet after class on Friday until next week. The video we have been watching in class is about a guys passion for a book that he had recently read called "The Stones of Summer". I believe the guy said that he was supposed to read the book back in high school, he started reading it but never really got into it. Many years later now the man is grown, he now has a wife and kids. I think the story goes that he was looking through all his books one day and came across The Stones of Summer again. The book was pretty much wore out, there was no cover on the book and most of the pages were no longer bound together. The guy eventually started reading the book again and this time he ended up falling in love with it. He got the name of the author of the book and decided to look and see what other books he has written.
     However when he starts to look for other books written by this author he can not find anything. So he begins to do some research on the author and try to find out where he lives or what he is doing these days. Turns out he can't find anything on the guy, it's like he just dissapeared like a ghost. This seems to trouble the narrator of the video greatly. So he starts to do some major research on the author and see if he can find him and ask him why he hasn't written anything else since The Stones of Summer. I'm really can't remember what this guy did for a living but i remember him saying that the fall time was his busiest time of year. He eventually gets into contact with many different people such as college professors and book critics to see if he can find out anything. Turns out many of these so called people in high places had never even heard of the book or the author. This surprises the heck out of our narrator. I think its now been a year or two since he has started his digging on the author and he really hasn't found anything major yet. He does get into contact with someone one supposedly was in the same class with the author but that guy doesn't remember the author either.
     Our guy finds out that the author went to college somewhere in i think Iowa, so he makes a trip out there to see what he can find. He goes to the library at the college to see if he can find some of the works that the author has done. He ends up finding boxes full of his scratch work with different revisions and things like that. I think after this he eventually gets a phone number for the author and when we stoped watching in class on wednesday he was about to call the author. I'm kind of anxious to see what happens and why the author hasn't written anything since then.
     Not to sound like a complete suck up or anything but this to me is one of the best english classes i have been in. I enjoyed pretty much all of the stories we had to read except for a couple of them. Most of the stories were pretty interesting and kept me wanting to read on to figure out what was going to happen. With other classes we had to read stories that i really had no interest in at all. I really enjoyed the discussions we had in class about the stories and hearing all the different input from different people. I also enjoyed getting to see the different clips on youtube about the stories we read. Overall i really enjoyed this class and i have actually recommended it to a couple friends for next year.

The Eye by Robert Bolano

     Although this story was  pretty quick and easily understandable, it just seems to me to be pointless. The story is about a character who is known as the "eye". I believe they call him this because he tries to avoid conflict and violence in any way possible, keeping a sharp eye out at all times, hence the nick name.
     I think the eye was originally from chile but moved to mexico city which is where he meet the nararator of the story. The nararrator and the eye became pretty close friends while in mexico city. The eye eventually got a job as a photographer, which in turn earned him more money. The eye then started to dress better wearing nice collered shirts and sometimes even a tie. Then the rumors starting going around that the eye was gay, which some say was the reason that he moved from chile in the first place. Eventually the eye got a job offer in Paris and decided to take it. The eye and the nararator went out on the town one last night together and this is when the eye finally told him that he was gay. After the night was over both of them went back home and lost touch for a long time since the eye got the job in Paris.
     Two or three years after the eye has left Mexico the narrarator also went to Paris to try and find the eye. Although he was trying to not be very obvious about it. After a while with no luck the nararator was walking home one night and just happened to find the eye sitting on a bench in a little park area. To me this is where the story gets a little weird. The eye gets sent to India i think it is, for work. Here he has to take pictures of the local underground prostitution ring. He gets taken around to all these sketchy brothels and eventually ends up in one with a bunch of young boys in it. Somehow something happens and some of the boys are supposed to be given to a God as some sort of offering and to do this the boy has to be castrated. Well eventually the eye is taken into the back with a young boy were he meets the doctor and sees another young boy waiting to be castrated. The violence factor kicks in for the eye and he grabs the two young boys and runs out of the brothel.
     He takes the boys away from the town to a little village were he thinks no one can find them. He constantly worries about the police coming to get him for running away with the boys. When he receives word that the police aren't coming then he gets worried that some goons from the brothel will come get him, which terrifies him even more than the police. While living with the two boys he tells the local people that they are his children. The eye takes up farming and even helps some of the larger farmers in the area when they need it. The eye enjoys living with the boys and begins to think of them as his own children. Eventually a disease hits the area and the two young boys die. The eye is heartbroken and contacts one of his friends from Paris, who i believe was his gay lover while he lived in Paris. The man sends him money to get back to Paris and this is pretty much how the story ends.
    Like i said earlier this was a pretty good story. Towards the middle of the story it starts to get a little weird and i really don't understand the point of the story.

"The Lazarus Project" by Alexksandar Hemon

     The book starts out with Lazarus as a young man seemingly roaming around the streets of Chicago like a homeless person. Lazarus doesn't seem to have any family around him or at least anywhere close to him. It seems that he has come from Bosnia to America for work. One morning Lazarus tries to go to the chief of police's house, which to him seems like a very high scale mansion. But when he gets their the butler greets him at the door and tells him that he is to early to come back in a hour and he could see him. So Lazarus starts to walk around the city to pass the time until he can go back and talk to the chief of police. While walking around Lazarus stops in a store, mainly because he is hungry and the store he goes into smells good. While in the store the store owner and his wife seem to be very suspicious of Lazarus because of the way he is dressed and because he will not speak when spoken to. After a while Lazarus buys some candy thinking they will think different of him because he has money to spend on "pleasure items" as he says it. After that he pops some candy in his mouth and heads back to the chief's house.
     When Lazarus knocked on the door the Chief opened it and Lazarus walked in a few steps. Lazarus didn't say anything and the chief just stared him down. At this time we get a glimpse of what the newspapers would say the next day, " In the brief all-comprehensive glance he gave his caller, William P. Miller will write in the Tribune, Chief Shippy took in a cruel, straight mouth with thick lips and a pair of gray eyes that were at the same time cold and fierce. There was a look about that slim, swarthy young man-clearly a Sicilian or a Jew- that could send a shiver of distrust into any honest man's heart. Yet Chief Shippy, never to be unsettled by malevolence, invited the stranger into the comfort of his living room.( page 7)". While standing there Lazarus threw an envelope into the chief's hand and from here seemingly for no reason all hell breaks loose. "I did not wait to examine the envelope any further. The thought struck me like a streak of lightening that the man was up to no good. He looked to me like an anarchist. I grabbed his arms and forcing them behind his back, called to my wife." (page 8) Seemingly for no good reason at all except that the young man looked like a foreigner there was a struggle and the chief eventually ended up shooting Lazarus killing him. Seems to me like racial profiling.
     Next we get into the part with the main character. He mostly talks about the differences between American's and Bosnian people. His wife is a neurosurgeon and he is a writer. He seems to feel pretty bad or just simply embarrassed that his wife makes way more money than he does. He wants to do a story on the shooting of Lazarus that took place by this time a 100 years ago. But to do this he has to get some money and preferable a grant. He goes out the celebrate the Bosnian independence day and ends up meeting an older couple that own all kinds of foundations and surely have lots of money. The elderly woman finds out who he is and starts talking to him about all the articles and columns that he has written and about how much she likes them. Later on they start dancing it almost seems to me like he is just trying to get friendly with the old lady so that she will give him his grant. As the couple dance away he keeps stepping on her feet and eventually she falls down in pain and he drops down on his knees to see if he can help. But, everyone else thinks they are doing some kind of dance and pictures are taken and the old lady turns from pain to happy again. The book says, "Later on, all the Bosnians in the organization committee were delighted and praised me for giving Susie a good old time, for now that she and Bill had been exposed to the ecstatic joys of Bonian culture, a hefty check was doubtless in the offing." (page 16)  So he pretty much did just get friendly with the old lady just to get at her money.
     To me one of the more interesting parts comes up next when he runs into an old high school classmate Rora. He goes up to Rora expecting a big hug or slap on the back and ends up getting nothing. He then goes on to tell some stories of Rora back in high school. He seemed to be the cool kid in school always missing class never seemingly to worry about anything. He went to all kinds of exotic places, drove planes, fancy cars, sleep with older women, and ate lavish foods. All the kids were in awe of him and loved to here of his stories when ever he came back. There were lots of rumors about Rora's family, about his dad possibly being a spy or in some secrete agency, his family in some kind of mafia business and they were all killed so he lived with his dads friends and even some speculation that Rora himself was a spy. To me Rora seems like a pretty cool guy.
     I know i havn't got into the story to far yet, it's kind of hard to find time to read towards the end of the semester but I think this story is starting to grab me a little more.

"Saints at the River" by Ron Rash

     So far i have really enjoyed reading this book. I guess the fact that it takes place in South Carolina and and i have been in or heard of just about every place it talks about.
     The story starts out with a young girl and her family having a pick nick on the bank of the Tamassee River. Since the river is on the the Georgia, South Carolina line the girl wants to wade out to the middle so that she can tell her friends back home that she has been in two states at one time. The girl, who i think they say was around 9 years old or so, wades out to the middle of the river and ends up getting swept downstream. The Tamassee River is very powerful especially during this time of year they say. The young girl ends up getting caught in a hydraulic and under a rock. The girls family tries to do all they can to save her, the mother dives in a few time but can't get her out and the father, who can't swim, just watches helplessly from the shore. But, the river is to powerful and they can't get the girl out.
     After about 3 or 4 weeks the girls body has still not been recovered from the river. The girls father begins to raise hell about the situation, which i think is very understandable. The story eventually begins to attract the attention of some big time news media and that's when our main character Maggie Glenn comes into play. Maggie works for a newspaper company down in Columbia, but she is a native of the Tamassee River area and actually attended Clemson University. Maggie gets sent to cover the story, since she is a native of the area, with a rather famous writer Allen Hemphill.   It turns out Maggie secretly like Allen but notices that he wears a wedding band on his finger even though everyone knows that he is single.
     Maggie and Allen head out the next morning to cover the story. The car ride there seemed like Maggie was pretty nervous riding with Allen. She kept wanting to know more about Allen and why he wore a wedding ring. Once they got there Maggie seemed to know everyone and they all seemed very happy to see her. This is the exact same thing that happens when i go back home from school, everybody makes it seem like you've been gone forever, but i guess that's just the way things are in small town, I really wouldn't have it any other way. Anyways Maggie meets up with a few old friends and introduces Allen around to everyone. Allen ends up staying at a hotel the first night while Maggie goes to her house to stay with her father. Maggie's mother died when she was a junior in college and now her father lives at home alone but is dieing of cancer. Maggie and her father never really had a good relationship with each other so she is rather nervous about going back home to spend the night.
     There is a meeting the next day about getting the young girl out of the river. The girls father has hired a portable dam company to build a temporary dam in the river to divert the water enough that they might be able to pull the girls body out of the river. But many of the locals especially Luke says that this is against the law because it would cause harm to the river. At the meeting many different people argue back and forth about what should be done. Personally i think that the portable dam would be a great idea as long as it could handle the power of the river. they say that the dam could be built, used, and taken out all in the same day without causing any harm at all to the river. I have to agree with the father i would be trying to do any and everything to get my daughter out. But the river rats don't agree with this. They say that this will cause harm to the river and led to other things such as roads being built and development taking place close to the river.
     While at the meeting Allen records the whole things for his story. They next day down at the river they try to measure different depths and things in order to get some information to build the dam. Maggie and Allen get some good information from some of the major players involved and later on that night they meet up with Luke for supper at Moma Tilsons. Here Luke shows them all the paper work and some pictures of the laws protecting the river and says that if it were his daughter trapped in the river that he could image no better place for her to be. From this quote i can see where Luke is coming from but i still just doesn't seem right to let her stay in the river. Maggie also does some research on Allen and finds out that his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash and wonders how it feels to be covering a story like this. That night or either the next night Maggie and Allen head down to Billy's store for some guitar pickin and the two seem to hit it of pretty good. On the way home Allen skips past the hotel and drives down to the bridge. The two talk for a while and then end up kissing. The next morning they pack up and head back home.
     Once back at the office Maggie gets praised for the picture she has taken. Allen is pretty close but has not yet finished his writting on the story. The two end up eating supper at Maggie's house that night for their "first date". Here Allen kind of opens up to Maggie about his feelings for his wife and daughter. He seems to really miss his daughter the most and feels like helping to get this little girl out of the river would make him feel like a better parent than he was to his daughter. When the night is over the two kiss goodnight and he heads back home. And thats as far along in the story as i have gotten.
     Overall i like this story a lot. So far it is a pretty easy read and sort of hard to put down once i get going good. I strongly lean toward the side of doing everything i can to get the little girl out of the river. It can be done without the destroying the river like Luke and many of the other think it would.

bustling- a crowded space full of people walking around talking, lots of noise everyone very busy
rheumy- mucus disgarded from the eyes, nose, or mouth
juxtaposed- to place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast

"Glengarry Glen Ross" by David Mamet

     I'm starting out at scene three here. Its seems like from here on out it's pretty much just everyone arguing with everyone else. In the beginning scenes we found out that Levene and Moss were planning on robbing the office to steal some of the better leads and sell them off to another guy for profit. Scene three starts  out with Roma meeting a guy named Lingk at a restaurant and Roma pretty much runs his mouth the whole time. I may have missed something here but i really don't see where this scene fits into the whole play at all. But anyway act two starts out with the rest of the guys finding out that the office had been robbed and the leads had be stolen. This is where a lot of the arguing starts to begin everyone wants to blame everyone else for the robbery.
     As usual Levene continues to act like a bad ass just because he closed an eighty two thousand dollar deal, which i have to admit i would be pretty proud of myself. But one of the things that i just don't like about him is that he just thinks he's better than everybody else, and that just drives me crazy. For example of page 76 when he is talking to Williamson he says, " Would you?  Would you...? Or you're gonna what, fire me?" (page 76).  And over on the next page he's talking trash to Roma he says, " What are you, you're a secretaty, John. FUck you. That's my mesage to you. Fuck you and kiss my ass. You don't like it, I'll go talk to Jerry Graff. Period. Fuck you." (page 77)  I just don't see how Levene hasn't had his ass kicked yet, i just really don't like that guy. But anyways a little later on Williamson kind of puts two and two together and figures out that it was Levene that actually robbed the office. This is what Williamson tells Leven, " Well, I'm saying this, Shel; usually i take the contracts to the bank. Last night i didn't. How did you know that? One night in a year i left a contract on my desk. Nobody knew that buy you. Now hoe id you know that? You want to talk to me, you want to talk to someone else...because this is my job. This is my job on the line, an you are going to talk to me. now how did you know that contract was on my desk?" (page 99). After Williamson finally gets Levene to admit to it he also gets him to rat out Moss. The play ends with more arguing amongst everyone and with Levene trying to pay people off to keep him out of trouble but it's just not working. 
     To me my enjoyment of the play picked up a little more than it was in the beginning. It was a pretty quick read and once i got  used to reading the "play" style format i was able to read it pretty quick. Overall i think it was a pretty decent play, kinda wish i could find out whats gonna happen to Levene though. Maybe he gets taken out by some mafia members or some hired guns by some of the other guys at the office haha.

schmuck- a surname of German orgin

prudence- is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason.

"Glengarry Glen Ross" By David Mamet

     To start with I really do  not like reading plays. With the names up the characters constantly being on the side of the page  i find it very distracting to read. Also to me i just do not feel like the story flows as well when its written this way.
     Act one scene one takes place at a  Chinese restaurant with John Williamson and Shelly Levene. The two seem to be arguing over some business. Although Levene is older it seems like Williamson has more power and control with the business. It seems that Levene has had a run of bad luck lately and is having trouble closing deals. I'm not sure what kind of work these guys do but it seems to me like they are in the  reality business or something of that nature. From reading just the first act i can already tell i won't like Levene very much. He seems like a cry baby and somebody who is all talk. Also he seems to repeat words a lot even withing the same sentence for some reason this really just aggravates me and adds to my dislike of Levene. For example the very first words he says in scene one, "John...John...John. Okay. John. John" (pg150). After he finally finishes saying John for the twenty time he goes on to say something else. Throughout the first scene the two seem to argue back and forth with Levene mostly complaining and trying to push the blame onto other people. Levene just really gets under my skin. On page 24 he tells Williamson, who i think is his superior, "Fuck that. That's defeatist. Fuck that. Fuck it...Get on my side. Go with me. Let's do something. You want to run this office, run it (pg 24)". I would never talk to my superior that way unless i pretty much knew i wasn't going to have a job there the next day. The scene ends with Williamson getting tired of Levene's crap and leaving the restaurant.
     Scene two starts out with Aaronow and Moss sitting in a restaurant as well. They also seem to be talking about business and they both seem as though they are being screwed. They both seem to want to be more like Jerry Graff who found a list of like a thousand nurses. They say that Jerry clears anywhere from ten the fifteen thousand dollars a week. Aaronow and Moss both seem to think that they are being screwed out of good leads just as Levene believes that he is as well. For example Moss says, "That's what I'm saying. Why? The leads. He's got the good leads...what are we, we're sitting in the shit here. Why? We have to go to them to get them."(page 34). Later on in the scene is seems as though Aaronow wants Moss to break into the office building and steal all the leads making it look like a robbery. After they steal the  leads he want to sell them all to Jerry Graff and go into business with him. This is pretty much how  scene two ends with both me arguing back and forth about robbing the office of the leads and whats going to happen to each of them if they get caught.

Seville- is the capitol of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville, Spain

Antagonize-  a person or group of people who oppose some one else or another group

Polacks- a derogetory reference to a person of Polish decent.

The Same River Twice

     This section of the book follows the same pattern as the beginning. One chapter on him as an adult about to have a baby and the next chapter on him as a young boy exploring the world. The author spends most of his time continuously worrying about the baby's health, and if he will be the cause of it if something is wrong. For example at one point in the story he says, "I was against the test, afraid that if oour child turned out damaged, it would mean that i was too" (page55). I think his wife is starting to worry about the health of the baby as well simply because her husband is so concerned with it. On page 55 it shows an example of this by saying, "She wanted amnioscentesis to eliminate the worry of producing a baby less than perfect".
     The author still seems to wander through the woods seemingly doing nothing while his wife goes to work everyday. He did however recieve some payment for a short story that he wrote. He feels that the payment makes his wife feel comfortable with her decision to have a baby with him. The payment he recieved was only 54 dollars and i think thats the only money he has brought in for a while now. It seems to me that he is pretty much lazy and just doesn't want to do anything at all. This is pretty evident in some of the chapter in which he is a young kid roaming around the world alone.
     At one point he considers himself a drifter and doesn't know if he is running from something or running to something. Most of the time while he is our drifting from state to state as a young kid he finds work but hardly every stays at one occupation for a decent amount of time. At one point in the story he says, " Montana was a beautiful state but lacked employment" (page 67). At this point in time he seems to be wandering around looking for the perfect job moving from state to state. He did find one job that he like as a dishwasher. But the only reason he liked it was because he didn't have to do hardly anything including think. He even turned down a job with higher pay as a short order breakfast cook because he said he like the freedom of washing dishes.
     To me so far the story seems to have a pretty continous patter of worried father to be and lonesome wandering kid. To me the worried father to be chapters are pretty boring but i do enjoy reading about his adventures as a young kid.


amnioscentesis- is a medical procedure used in prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal abnornormalities and fetal infections, in which a small amount of amniotic fluid, which contains fetal tissues, is sampled from the amnion or amniotic sac surrounding a developing fetus, and the fetal DNA is examined for genetic abnormalities.

dyslexia- a learning dissability that impairs a persons fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read.

trepidation- ossilation in the precission of equinoxs

corpuscles- a small free floationg biological cell, exspecially a blood cell.

"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

     The story starts out with the husband learning that his wife has an old friend coming to visit them. She then tells him that the person coming to visit it an older blind man named Robert and that his wife had just passed away. The narrators wife had worked for the blind man one summer before the two had become married and her and the blind man had stayed in touch since then, I think it said it had been ten years or so since they had last seen each other. The two stayed in contact with each other over the years by sending audio cassette tapes to each other. On the tapes were the events and things that had happened in each others lives since they had sent the last tape. Well to start with the husband wasn't very thrilled with the idea of the blind man coming to stay at his house as he says, " I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me."...(pg. 108).  At this point if i was in the husbands shoes i would have more than likely felt the same way.
     The story then goes on to tell some of the events that happened on the tape from both the wife's life and the life of Robert the blind man. The husband still doesn't like the idea of Robert coming to visit and his wife i think started to get annoyed with him as she says, "If you love me, you can do this for me. If you don't love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I'd make him feel comfortable." (pg 111). His wife then becomes more frustrated as he responds by saying he doesn't have any blind friends. The wife then responds by saying " you don't have any friends, period. Besides goddamn it his wife just died! Don't you understand that. The man's lost his wife!" (pg 111)  His wife then starts to tell him of how Robert had meet his wife. The he starts to feel kind of bad for Roberts wife because she had to go through life with her husband not being able to see anything. He said she must have been hurt a lot by the fact that she could never get a compliment from her spouse about how nice she looked or anything.
     His wife then goes to the train depot to pick up Robert and brings him back to the house. They all gather in the house and the wife and Robert talk non stop about the train ride and all the things that have happened lately in their lives. The husband tries to chime in from time to time but i can tell he still feels pretty awkward about the situation. Then they eat supper and no one says a word  and the husband says, " We dug in . We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow." (pg 115) My guess is that they scarfed down their food so fast because they had been drinking the whole time that they were talking. The husband just like i would seems to be amazed by the fact that Robert seems to know were everything is on his plate and uses his knife and fork to cut his meat as though he can see everything perfectly. After supper they go back into the living room to talk and have some more drinks. After a while his wife goes up stairs to change into her robe and the husband is left there with the blind man. Even though i think he has become a little more comfortable with the situation i still think its a little awkward for him, which is understandable. While his wife is gone he turns the tv on and the two men start to talk a little more. His wife comes back down stairs and sit between them on the couch and falls asleep shortly after. To me this is when the two men seem to become comfortable with each other. They both watch tv, well one watches tv and the other one listen, have drinks and smoke cigarettes and dope. They can't find anything good on tv so they end up watching a program about cathedrals. The husband tries to describe to Robert how a cathedral looks put does a pitiful job at it.
     Robert then ask the husband to try and draw a cathedral for him while he holds on to his hands so that he can kind of get a feel for how one looks. This is the point in the story that i believe the husband really starts to connect with Robert. The husband starts out slow thinking that he can't do it but with Robert encouraging him he continuous on and starts to feel really good about his drawing. Robert then ask the husband to continue drawing but with his eyes closed. he does and when they are done drawing Robert ask him what he thinks. The husband replies by saying, " My eyes were still closed. i was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything. Its really something." (pg 124)  I can't really get a feel for how the husband feels at this point.
     To me this story seemed to be kind of a feel good story. It starts out with the husband not wanting this strange man in his house, especially since he was blind. But over time I think he really made a connection with Robert. In the end of the story when they are done with the drawing of the cathedral I think the husband kind of gets a feel for how Robert has to live his life without being able to see and starts to feel sorry for the man. I think he kind of had a feeling of pride or accomplishment when he got done drawing the picture while having his eyes closed. Something that kind of randomly pops out at me now is the fact that the wife has a tendency to repeat a lot of things. For example when she tells them to wake her up when they are on the couch talking she must have told them 2 or 3 time in a row. Another thing is that the blind man doesn't wear any kind of glasses, he has a beard, doesn't use a cane, and he smokes non stop. This doesn't really fit into place right here but it was just a random thought that popped into my head at the moment. Overall i thought this was a really good book. I liked it.

Disconcerting- to upset the self possession of...to frustrate. 
Gargoyles- a carved stone statue usually made of granite...used to convey water from the roof and away from the side of a building.
Cathedral- a religious building for worship....used by Roman Catholic, some Methodist, and some Lutheran churches.
Viaducts-a bridge composed of several small spans.

"The Crying of Lot 49" Chapter 6

    The last chapter begins with Oedipa going back to the hotel in San Narcisco after I think they has separated from her husband , which is not official but is more than likely. Oedipa then gets in touch with Professor Bortz and drives out to his house to talk about the play with him. On the way out to the professors house she drives by the bookstore where she first bought a copy of play and found the building burned to the ground. "Driving over she passed by Zapf's used books, and was alarmed to find a pile of charred rubble where the bookstore only  a week ago had stood" pg. 122). Oedipa then went to the government surplus store next door to find out what happened. The owner of the store tells Oedipa "Zapf, the damn fool, has set fire to his own store for the insurance" pg. 122). After she finally gets to the professors house the professor says Tristero's version of the play is " A pornographic Couriers Tragedy. pg 125). Oedipa then finds out from the professor that Driblette has committed suicide and now she realized that she will never know why he mentioned the tristero in his own version of the play.
     From some information that the professor gave her, which is somewhat confusing to me, Oedipa begins to put together how the Tristero was created. This too seems rather confusing to me as there are cousins fighting and going to war against each other. Oedipa then spends the next few days doing more and more relentless research and she also attends Driblette's funeral.
     Oedipa eventually goes back to the scope were she talks to Mike Fallopian. She begins telling him about everything she has found out and then Mike tells her, "Has it ever occurred to you, Oedipa, that somebody's putting you on? that this is all a hoax, maybe something Inverarity set up before he died?".pg138). This thought has came across her mind before but she continues to refuse it. Oedipa talks with Mike a little more and then becomes angry and leaves the bar.
     After recieving a letter from the bookstore that has already burned down Oedipa goes back to Pierce's home to do some research as the idea that he may have been playing a joke on her is finally starting to sink in. She finds out that most of the places and people she has meet along the way were in some kind of contact with Pierce. He either owned the building or had supported the person with money or help of some kind. I start to become a little more confused towards the end of the story but Oedipa finds out that Pierce's stamps on being auctioned off over a lot 49. Oedipa thinks that whoever bid on most of the stamps may be the person to talk to in order to figure out the whole thing, and then the story ends.
     This book to me was good and times and at other times i didn't like it all that much. There seems to be tom much jumping around from place to place and to many character for me to keep up with. At other times it kept me on edge wondering what would happen next. To me a secrete underground mail service doesn't seem all that exciting of a story for a book. But like i said at times it did keep me wondering what would happen next. I also would have like to figure out what happened in the end instead of the story just ending.

 vatican-a city state in Italy
swastika- a cross with arms bent at right angles, famous for the nazi party but the swastika was used by many different cultures around the world.

"The Crying of Lot 49" chapter 4

     In chapter 4 Oedipa goes from person to person and from place to place trying to piece together clues and trying to figure out what W.A.S.T.E may stand for, and she is also trying to figure out what the strange symbol she found on the bathroom wall at the scope may mean.
     Oedipa starts her research out by rereading Pierce's will and realizes that the Yoyodyne company is mentioned in it so she decides to go to one of the stockholders meeting which was to be held the next day. This meeting seemed very strange to me as the company president led the people in a sing along after the regularly scheduled business was taken care of. After all this takes place Oedipa is taken on a company tour and seemingly like she always does she gets lost and separated from the rest of the group. It just so happens that the person she finally stops and talks to is doodling the mysterious symbol at his desk. Oedipa describes this symbol as " a loop, triangle, and trapezoid all connected together". After visiting and talking with this guy she gets a copy of the play thy saw a few days earlier and decides to got to the place the copy of the play was published.
     While on her way Oedipa decides to stop by an old folks home that Pierce had built. Once again she picks a completely random person to talk to. He tells her about the dream he was having, it was about his grandfather who rode for the pony express. The pony express was the fastest mail service of its time using horse and buggy to carry mail from east to west. The pony express only ran for about a year but it was the quickest way to get word from east to west before the telegraph was invented. The man said his grandfather was an Indian killer and he showed her a ring that his grandfather has cut off one of the Indians. And once again here it was that strange symbol she was trying to chase down the meaning off, the symbol was on the ring that the old man showed her. So after this Oedipa goes back to the scope to talk to Fallopian to try and piece together some of the clues but, they fail to do so. So once again Oedipa ventures off and heads to see Pierce's personal stamp collector. On many of the stamps they looked at they found the mysterious symbol and some symbols that were slightly different.
     So pretty much chapter 4 is about Oedipa running around following clues trying to figure out anything she can about this symbol. All of the people that Oedipa talked to in this chapter seemed to cut her off and try to change the subject when Oedipa seemed to dig to far. There is very little mention of Metzger in this chapter as he seems to be working on the will of Pierce. There is also no mention of Oedipa's husband, i think their relationship may fall apart within the next few chapter. As of right now i really don't know what to expect next, Oedipa keeps digging for clues but then she keeps getting the door slammed in her face when she digs to far.

"The Crying of Lot 49" chapter 2

     Chapter 2 starts out with Oedipa leaving her home in Kinneret, California and headed to San Narciso where Pierce had lived and also were his law firm was based. Once Oedipa arrives into town she checks into a hotel. Here shee meets a young guy named Miles. Oedipa describes him in the following way, "The manager, a drop out named Miles, maybe 16 with a beatle haircut and a lapelless, cuffless, one button monhair suit". A monhair suit is made out of silk like fabric or yarn from the hair of an Angora goat. Oedipa notices Miles' singing and he tells her that he is in a band called the Paranoids. I think Mile's is sort of paranoid as he thinks Oedipa wants to sleep with him in exchange for Oedipa taking a demo of Miles' band to her husband so he can play it on the radio. Paranoid is a thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear.
     Later on that night a lawyer named Metzger shows up to help Oedipa execute the will. It is quickly learned that Pierce's estate was very complicated as he had his hands dipped into everything while he was alive. As the night goes on Metzger and Oedipa begin drinking heavily and Metzger starts to tell Oedipa of his past. Metzger was a child actor and it just so happened that while they were talking and drinking one of the movies he was in as a child came on the tv they were watching. As the night goes on the two get drunker and drunker and start to play a gamed called strip botticelli. I think this is a game Metzger just made up in order to get what he wanted to in this game Oedipa would have to remove one article of clothing for every question Metzger answers. She agrees to play the game but before they start she goes to the bathroom and puts on all the clothes that she brought with her, she could hardly walk she had so many clothes on. When she goes to walk out of the bathroom she falls down and knocks over a can of hair spray breaking it causing the can to fly all over the place. The can ended up breaking the mirror in the bathroom and an few other things. While the can was flying around Metzger ended up laying on top of Oedipa to protect her. At this point in the story Miles and his band busted into the room ready to party. Oedipa sent them back out so they set up and started playing music in the hallway. As the night goes on the two continue to drink and watch the movie on tv and eventaully end up having sex.
     At this point in the story i'm not to sure what to think about Oedipa. In the very beginning of the story we learned that Oedipa felt trapped and she described it as her being like Rapunzel trapped up high in a tower somewhere, just waiting for someone to ask her to let her hair down. Peirce had tried to climb up her hair but ended up falling down as her hair turned out to be only a wig. At this point in time I feel like Oedipa is a wild woman who is somewhat messed up in the head. She ends up cheating on her husband with Metzger who was the lawyer sent to help her settle the estate of her diseased ex boyfriend, she also goes to a head doctor name Dr. Hillarious. At this point in time I think that its possible that Pierce's death may have messed with her head in some way but i'm not real sure, gonna have to keep reading and find out whats going to happen.  
    

"The School" by Donald Barthelme and "The Perfect Gerbil" by George Saunders

     I must say this was one of the strangest yet one of the most interesting stories I have ever read. Once you think you have figured out what is going to happen next bang the next thing completely takes you by surprise.  The very beginning of the story seems to confuse me a little as Edgar the main character in the story seems to just ramble on and on about Donald Barthelme and works. He also talks about the beginning of his writing days and some of the techniques that Barthelme uses in his writing. I start to get confused a little towards the end of the first page as the author says "the technique here is of escalation-an evolutionary evolution progression from trees to snakes to fish to mammals". Here escalation means "the phenomenon of something getting more intense in a step by step process. However, after I read the whole story I went back and read the introduction again and it all made since to me.
     The story is about Edgar, the main character, who is an elementary school teacher. Edgar's class seems to be having a run of bad look during this particular time. Everything the children seem to get for their class seems to die. In the beginning the class is planting trees in order to learn about them however, the trees die shortly after. A couple weeks before that the class had snakes in order to study and shortly after that they all died. Next was the herb garden then the tropical fish then a puppy. The class then adopted a Korean kid who then shortly after also passed away. But, so far everything seem to have a reasonable answer for its passing away. Then the children's relatives started passing away then two of the children were killed in an accident not far from the school. It seemed that whatever the class came into contact with would end up dead. Once you think you have figured out the pattern of the story the next thing takes you completely by surprise.
     The children start to ask very deep and educated questions as to where everything goes when it passes away. The children ask "is death that which gives meaning to life"? And as always Edgar is able to escape the question very quickly with an answer. The end of the story is very surprising and unexpected as it introduces a new character who happened to be in the classroom the whole time. As they are having their conversation about the death the children suddenly say "will you make love now with Helen"? Helen is the teachers assistant who sits quietly looking out of the window. The children wish to see a demonstration of love making with he and Helen. And just as I thought that this may actually happen as did the children as it says they became excited and knock came to the door. It was a new gerbil for the class.
     So as you can see the ending to this story was very much unlike the rest. Once you think you had the patter of the story figured out boom next come something completely different which keeps the reader on his toes.
     The next story is called "The Perfect Gerbil" by George Saunders. In this the author pretty much breaks down the writing style of Barthelme in his story "the School". He says you start with the exposition next you introduce the conflict then you have rising action then the climax then falling action, and finally the resolution. The author says "this is the hardest thing in story telling-getting one's action to rise". The author says "if you wanted a perfect platonic example of action you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than "the school". In this case platonic means a strong type of non sexual love.
     The author then goes on to break down the rest of the story. He says that once you think you have to plot of the story figured out Barthelme will completely go to something else to keep the reader from getting bored. He also says that there are plenty of opportunities for the story to have a normal ending but then the situation changes. which is one the things he loves so much about Donald Barthelme. Overall i thought both of these stories were pretty good. I loved "The School" very much as it keep me wondering what would happen next. Also reading "The Perfect Gerbil" helped me to understand the writing style of Barthelme.

Delmore Schwartz "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities"

     This story had me confused at so many different times but because of this it made it very hard for me to stop reading. In the beginning i thought the he was just telling us what was going on in a movie he was watching. Then as i read on further i thought it was maybe a home made movie from before he was born. It takes me until the very end of the story to actually figure out that he was dreaming the whole time.
     On page 474 the author says "my father thinks of my mother, of how lady like she is, and of the pride which will be his when he introduces her to his family". This is the point of the story were i kind of figure out that the author hasn't even been born yet. The rest of the story goes on to tell of a date that his mother and father went on, they took a t trip to coney island. He then describes the scenery of were they are and were they go, as well as keeps us up to date with what is happening between his mother and father. While watching he notices the similarities and differences that his mother a father have. Towards the end he says his father feels omnipotent, this means to feel like you have unlimited power. He says his mother has principles of economy and housewifelyness, these two characteristics seems to clash with each other a few time throughout the story.
     Later on in the story after his father has asked his mother to marry him the author finds himself standing up in the theater screaming "Don't do it! It's not to late to change your minds, both of you". This sort of makes me think that there family fell apart since the author is now 21 years old at this time, maybe the parents were divorced by this time. But, later on in the story when his mother and father have an argument the boy again gets up and shouts and the screen for them to be nice to each other. This makes me think that he really wants his parents to get together because his life would be so different or maybe even not exist at all.
     In the very end of the story when the boy is being taken out of the movie by the usher he is told that "everything you do matter to much", and at this point the boy wakes up. I think this kind of tells the boy that he can't make hasty decision to quickly before he gives them a chance to work. If he does then he might miss out on some of the best things in his life. Overall i think this was a very good story it keep me interested the whole time which made me read without stopping, which are the kind of stories i like.

Alice Walker "The Flowers"

     Even though this was a very short story i found that i like it very much. This story is about a ten year old girl who the author says " nothing existed for her but her song". This was a very happy little girl who didn't have a care in the world. The little girls name was Myop and she was from a sharecropper family who lived in a rundown cabin which seems to be close to nothing except for woods a fields. Myop liked to explore and roam around outdoors which i often found myself doing as a young child. There was no better feeling in the world than exploring around in the woods.
      Towards the end of the story the mood seems to change from happy care free to something a little different. As Myop wandered off a little further from the house than she usually does she find herself in an unfamiliar place which she doesn't find very pleasant. The author describes the scene as "it seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep". From this I could tell that the story was about to change and something bad was about to happen. It seems to me that Myop had stepped on the remains of a skeleton. To me the little girl seemed very brave as she only gave a little scream when she looked down for the first time and saw his face. Myop studied the remains very carefully and the author described the scene in great detail.
     In the end it said "Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over." To me it seems like Myop grew up a little at this time as it said she placed her flowers down beside the skeleton. I think she realized what was going on and out of respect laid her flowers down out of respect for the dead person. When it said the summer was over i believe this is saying since Myop came across this skeleton she can no longer wander around in the woods without a care. I think this discovery may have changed her life i believe she will now always be thinking about that day as she goes on with her life.

Birches by Robert Frost

     I really liked this poem and can relate to it in some ways. The author finds himself looking at some birch trees after an ice storm. He describes the scene by saying "loaded with ice on a sunny winter morning. After a rain, they click upon themselves". In these few lines he is describing what the trees look like after the ice storm. To me at this point it seems that the author is a little sad that the trees are damaged from the ice storm. In the middle of the poem he says "I prefer to have some boy bend them", meaning he would rather see the trees leaning over with limbs dragging the ground from children climbing on them instead of them being damaged from the ice storm.
     At this point i can see that by looking at the trees the author is taken back to his childhood. He seems to reminisce on the days of his boyhood when he used to climb trees for fun. I think he is saddened by the fact that kids are doing other things for fun since he has grown up instead of the things he used to do as a kid. I also think that he would like to take a timeout from his adult life and go back to his childhood days just so he can have no stress and worries for a while. Towards the end of the poem he says "I'd like to get away from earth for a while and then come back to it and begin over". To me these two line strongly suggest that he dearly misses his childhood days. 
     I often times find myself running across things I used to do as a child and wish i could go back to those days. After reading this poem i believe me and Robert Frost have at least one thing in common.

Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year by Raymond Carver

     Most of the time I find it very hard to reads poems and gain their full understanding. It's very difficult for me to pick up on the feelings of the author in most cases. However, after reading Raymond Carver's "Photograph of My Father in his Twenty-Second Year" I will give it a shot and tell you what the poem is saying in my train of thought.
     To me its seems that the author has found a picture of his father when he was twenty two years old.  As the author states "Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen", it sounds as though his father has passed away and he has gone to the place were his father lived to look around. From the overall tone of the poem and some of the things the author says I don't think the author and his father had a really healthy relationship at all. As the author studies the photograph of his father he says that "He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity". He also says that all of his life his father wanted to be bold, but his eyes along with his limp hands, and bottle of beer would always give him away. From reading this it seems that his father wanted to be known as a tough man as it said he like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity (descendants of one person). I get the feeling that his father was often proved wrong of his toughness and that is why he was an alcoholic.
      The last three lines of the poem starting with "Father, I love you" tell me that the author loved his father but never got the chance to hell him or his father simply never showed any love toward him. When he says that he can't hold his liquor either or doesn't even know the right places to fish, it seems to me that he feels as though he has let his father down. Simply because he can not drink like his father could or knew how to fish like his father did.
       I think the author has lots of regrets about his father, and feels that he let him down in some ways. I don't think the two spent very much time together while he was growing up which is sad. So in summary to me this poem was about his father dying and the son going to the place were his father lived. Here he found a picture of his father which brought back memories. I think the author feels as though he has let his father down and in some ways wished he was more like his father. For most boys growing up all they pretty much want to do is make there father proud, and i believe the authors thinks he didn't do that.

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