Do We Wanna Know?

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Not Reading For Dummies

Now that I have read about the obsolete importance of orientation in the so called "collective library," a concept that consists of books being part of a systematic map, I am ever more convinced and simultaneously troubled by the idea that 'not-reading' is preferable for the cultivated man than reading. As is argued by Pierre Bayard, the understanding of this map is what makes one cultivated or not. The emphasis of this first chapter lies in that reading is in reality not a necessity when it comes to fighting ignorance. Rather reading makes the reader ignorant, for instead of seeing reading a single book as an activity that "cultivates" it is seen as one that simply proves and represents that when choosing a book, one is neglecting the rest. Bayard argues that it takes only to know the name of the book to discuss it in an intelligent way, something I relate and find true when it comes to people. You need only to know the name and where the person goes to school to embark on a conversation solely about them, without even knowing what they look like. And while this concept may be true, I remain unconvinced that not reading can result in knowledge rather than ignorance. I argue with myself that books and people are simply not the same, but find myself conflicted. I try to name the similarities and differences between them and find that there are more similarities than differences.

People        vs.      Books
Complex              Complex
Living                  Aren't the characters of any book alive as well?
Conflicted            A book can indeed be very conflicted through its characters or its plot

Regardless of the fact that I can't find a way to convincingly argue how books and people can't be compared, I still believe it's true and as a result disagree with Bayard. Be that as it may, Bayard insists that reading is a "dangerous activity," embarking on more reasons why throughout the next chapter. In it he explains how a full on article can be written and efficiently argued about a book without having read it but rather just skimmed it. We step from discussing orally to writing publicly about it, a big step when it comes to voicing opinions if you ask me.

That the reader should avoid linking the author's life to his or her writing is a completely foreign concept to me the first time I read about it in How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. It is one of the many concepts argued by the author by using the examples of great literary critiques such as Paul Valery, the "master of non-reading," as he talks about how to talk about books that you have skimmed as opposing to the ones you haven't even cracked the spine of. While for the ladder one must learn to navigate the collective library, the former consists merely of perspective. By perspective, Bayard means applying the recently acquired orientation skills to a single volume instead of to the whole collective library. In order to do so I can attest that the only thing needed for the so called reader or critique is a few 'pin points' throughout the book that enable the reader to grasp at the books' "inherent depth and richness without getting lost in the details." This unfortunately is something that I can not only not argue against, but practice over and over again. I find myself realizing that this may not be the best book for me to read, since it will only encourage me to not read the books that are assigned to me in my various languages classes.

It's influence has been so far to confuse me and slowly make me realize that the only reading worth investing time and energy in, is the chick lit that I enjoy and love. The books that I have been educated to believe have no literary value whatsoever and are therefore simply objects to sill up excessive free time with. Things that keep me occupied and entertained at a low intellectual price. I also wonder if the only thing I need to do to continue writing blogs about this book is to skim it and read its table of contents.

The vital questions are: Should I and am I ready for that level of 'not-reading'?

Vocabulary
Eulogize - to praise highly in speech or writing

Multifarious - many and of various types

Fallacious Commercial

https://docs.google.com/a/cng.edu/file/d/0B0liDXUjLAa8NGtuc3E5Q1k2aWc/edit

Bring it On

As I begin reading what is probably the most bizarre book yet (and trust me when I say I've read some pretty weird things), I find myself fascinated by nothing more and nothing less than its title.  Despite the fact that I'm barely beginning to grasp the idea explained by Bayard in the first chapters of How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, I find myself thinking about the title and how I can relate to it. And here it is, the word that perfectly fits my necessities: Improvisation.

Improvisation is key to life. Or at least I've found it to be.

What do I do when a stranger comes up to me and sends their love and greetings to my mother?

I improvise. I smile and nod, reassuring them that I will and that I'm sure my mom will call them. But while that's my exterior, my interior is something more like this: 

Why is this stranger smiling at me? 

Oh no, he's approaching me now. 

He's waving. 

Am I about to be kidnapped?

Just go with the flow and smile back Barb. 

He probably knows your -- 

"Oh my God! How's Elisa doing? I haven't seen her in so long! You are so grown up! Are you the eldest? No, the middle one! Of course, of course. Well say hi to Diego as well, won't you? Right. Good to see you! Send them both my love!"

Notice how he doesn't mention his name? Normally they're so wrapped up in remembering, that they forget to remind me who they are. But I have no choice. For my parent's sake I have to improvise, otherwise my mother's fall from society will be on me, and God knows she will never let it go. 

If you ask me it's all about keeping up with appearances.

What do I do when everyone in the room read about the Philippines Typhon, while I was busy being an ignorant sloth?

I improvise. I nod when asked if I saw the pictures from El Tiempo. 

How about when I've been talking the whole time in Film Critique while supposed to be thinking about what I'll do for the next proyect and Cata puts me on the spot by asking me about it in front of everyone? 

I improvise. I blurt out and start talking about techniques and ideas that I think will impress her. Things that sound like they've been thought through meticoulously. I dig for the cinematic vocabulary I know, and I talk as if I've been waiting for this question since my birth.

Now the big question: why? Why go through all the trouble? Personally, because I don't want to immediately admit that I have no idea who you are, that I didn't even glance at El Tiempo on Sunday and that I didn't follow one simple instruction. I don't necessarily feel ashamed, but nevertheless obligated to do so out of pride. I'd rather improvise and attempt at making you think I have a great memory for faces, I read the news religiously and that I did you as you instructed.

If I have found improvisation to be a technique for the art of keeping up with appearances, will I find Bayard to think so as well? Will I find within How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read, that improvisation is key? Can this book become my manual of life? Because frankly, I won't deny that I enjoy improvising a teeny weeny bit. It's a test I'm willing to kick ass in, and what's more, rhetoric even plays its part. 

Strangers that aren't strangers: ethos. Act like you recognize them and reassure them of your good manners and excellent memory.

Pathetic ignorance: pathos. Just nod, frown and empathize you lazy pansy.

Suspicious vengeful Cata: logos. What's that angle Mr. Tangen said is the opposite of the wide angles' effects? Ah yes! Telephoto. 

Oh, Heart of Darkness? Of course Mr. Ferrebee, the irony is undeniably obvious. There's so many examples of it, I don't think it's fair to choose just one!
That's how I talk about books I haven't read. Pierre Bayard: bring it on and show me what you got.

Big Big Balloon

As cleverly mentioned by Heinrichs, the world of today is glutting in cliche's, despite the fact that its definition has evolved. When a common thought encompasses a throng of people, it's a cliche, or at least that's what I understood. I happen to come across this all the time among family and specially friends.

I have a friend who is great at discussing or in other words arguing. There are things we disagree on and they're normally subjects where knowledge is best when coming from experience. It is because of this that we have different views, because unless we were attached from the hip since being born, then our experiences vary in shape, size, color and luminosity, among other characteristics. Regardless of where our ideas and opinions on the certain topic come from, when it comes to trying to make each other see the other's point it gets a little tricky. Fortunately, this year we both have the help of Jay Heinrichs in Thank You for Arguing.

Different backgrounds and experiences build us up when it comes to harboring and conceiving opinions. Our views of the world are shaped by our upbringing which in part lies on parenting combined with other factors. Incidentally Heinrichs teaches us that in order to reach our goal of convincing someone else of something other than what they already know or think they understand, we are not to worry about or linger on the fact of why they think like that, but rather in knowing how to phrase and word our attack. We must understand that in rhetoric it is about manipulation of the audience, and a shape of said manipulation comes in the form of voice. Not voice as in "his voice is so high pitched!", but voice as in writing process Voice. By doing this, I employ term changing, redefinition, jujitsu and judo.

Recently I have discovered that most of my arguments are based on people's prejudiced over me. Due to their insistence on my behavior and what I think and do, I find it to be a cliche. They loom and make me in their eyes someone they despise. I have learned to control my arrogance and swallow my pride, a task that became very similar to swallowing a full blown balloon to a ping pong ball. The results have been quite favorable however and it has helped me when it comes to arguing with those who know me. By making them think I am no longer the arrogant, condescending being they pinned me to be, out of pure exaggeration from their part, I must add.

Cough Cough

I wonder if mastering rhetoric will really result in the individuals immunity to advertising. I wonder if Heinrichs is using rhetoric in these first chapters of introduction to sell us his book. I wonder if by reading it I am, like his seventeen year old son George, losing. Am I being played by accepting the challenge of learning and attempting to master the art of peruasion, through and beacuse of the art of persuasion itself?

That's something to think about, isn't it?

On the other hand, I am absolutely, irrevocably, fatuously and engrossingly fascinated. Having an opinonated and highly critical prone personality, I find this book brilliant. In it I sense the key to my rise to power and irrefutable respect, atleast in my house. World domination comes later.

I spend most of my time trying to persuade those closest to me. I have learned to work them according to their specific personality and character, their mood and temper.

For example: If I am sitting at the kitchen isle, in need of a spoon for my bowl of cereal, across from my younger, tantrum prone, acceptance seeking sister, and behind me lies the drawer where the spoons are kept, my lazy ass will go about like this to get a spoon without using anything other than my vocal cords and lips.

I will continue looking intently at my book or computer screen and do as follows.

Me: "Jose, can you get me a spoon?"
A few years ago, Jose would have just smiled and fetched the spoon. Today, she's onto me.
Jose: "They're right behind you."
Me: "I know but you're just sitting and eating, and Senior year is so hard and I have all these blogs to do and --"
Jose: Okay, okay, whatever, just stop talking."

I for a fact know that nothing bothers Josefina more than when I talk too much. At times it is so irritating because it makes any kind of discussion impossible, because she will simply shut down and agree in order to get me to shut up. Other times (cough cough, most of them since it's normally me and her in the kitchen isle), it's the absolute best.

When facing Heinrichs I may be george fetching tubes of toothpaste, but against Josefina I am definitely the Boss. In our confrontation (or conversation, whichever you prefer), I am using the three forms of rhetoric.
I'm implying a choice: if you get me the spoon I'll shut up about it.
I'm placing blame: It's your fault you feel annoyed by me because you decided not to get me a spoon immediately.
I'm using values: I'm busy doing important stuff (blogs), you aren't. Why won't you help me?

Did you see what I did there? I'm literally writing my blogs in Heinrichs style. I'm guessing that's a form of rhetoric, using a style I know you recognize and like, in order to convince you of my understanding of these first two chapters of Thank You for Arguing, and that I deserve a four, of course.

4 Four Efforything

Goody Good! Baddy Bad?

All good -- I mean bad things must come to an end. In the case of Narrative of the Life of Fredercik Douglass: An American Slave it in different ways fit into both the 'good things' and 'bad things' categories. For the former, there's the satisfaction when reading a book until the very end that is unlike any other feeling evoked by endings of any kind. Reading, as I have mentioned in my literacy narrative, is a time consuming activity that requires effort over longer periods of time than, say, a movie. Regardless, I personally like finishing books, and Douglass' narrative was no exception to the rule.

On the other hand, when referring to the ending as 'bad things', I'd think it's quite obvious that what I'm speaking of and referring to is slavery. Specifically Douglass'.

As the narrative approaches its conclusion, it is evident that the structure designed by Douglass along with his style, make of the conclusion what I thought of as a huge sigh or even gasp of surprise mixed with relief.

Leaving behind tales of horror, the narrative takes on a topic that makes the reader almost tremble with hope for humanity and excitement: escape. Our beautifully organized american bilingual school has since (four)ever pursued the embedment of american history into our minds. Therefore it is virtually impossible to find a student that neither knows or hasn't heard about the Underground Railroad. A bell at least rings once in recognition in CNG students' minds when mentioned. It must be said that said recognition, in general, comes hand in hand with a distinct feeling of hope alongside relief.

Why relief? Because the whole of the narrative we, as readers, have been informed in clinical detail of the unlimited cruelty expended by whites against slaves, for slavery's sake. That the protagonist should follow through on what were once simple contemplations of escape, is an exciting endeavour. We finally witness how it was said protagonist became a hero and a shining beacon of hope for those like him. We experience the climax of his transformation from slave to free man, to idol. Even Douglass seems excited to share this zenith of freedom in his life with the reader as he says, "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" (Chapter 10. Para. 10).

Pathological Whipping

Whipped....

As in whipped cream.

As in falling in love (an expression commonly used by teenagers today).

As in the act of being whipped. 

And now, thanks to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by former slave Frederick Douglass, yet another definition for whipped can be added to our list of meanings. But what does the word whipping mean when Douglass uses it? He mentions it when explaining the happenings surrounding the murder of the slave Demby, his blood in the hands of cold Mr. Gore. He says his actions go "unwhipped by justice" (Douglass, Chapter 4, para. 5) along with being "uncensured by the community".I don't know how to explain what the use of the verb whipped means in this phrase and context. I relate it to the adjective untouched. because when plugging in untouched in place of unwhipped, the meaning seems to stay the same.

On another note, the stories make this narrative's appeal to the different branches of rhetoric as clear as day.
It's logos because it's fact. It happened.
It's pathos because it takes to our hearts and conscious.
It's literally a pathological whipping of the brain. I don't cringe due to the descriptions, but rather because of the stories and examples he narrates. The descriptions aren't all that gory, the actions are. What causes me to gag with disgust, makes my palms sweat and my heart hurt, is the thought of Mrs. Hamilton and "pecked"; of Mr. Gore and Demby; of the freezing children. All these examples are described in a clinical, matter-of-fact way. Something that exuberates logos, and the result of it is purely pathos.
Oh and by the way, does wondering if white's have hearts at all, fall under pathos? 

Trivia Today!

When charged with the duty of copilot to my Mom's driving, many of what I call "phone errands" must be done. "Call her", "text him" and "check that" are commonly the beginning phrases of her commands. Very frequently I am asked to check her email through her phone, and to my surprise, where most emails come from is an account that goes by the username of Trivia Today Question of the Day. It happens to be one of the many ways of learning random facts about anything and everything, which is one of today's trends. The instagram, twitter and facebook accounts for random or "fun facts"are impossible to list. Signing up for the Trivia Today Question of the Day is my mothers preference for this trend.

What does this have to do with The Narrative of the Life of Fredercik Douglass: An American Slave?

What, indeed.

Reading the first two chapters of this narrative, what shocks me the most are the things that slaves are deprived of. Things that I would have never imagined or thought about when thinking, or in this case reading, about the era of slavery in the United States. But once these "things" were mentioned by Douglass, I got to thinking of what they really meant.

"(...) my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery." (Location 578 of 2239).

1. Birthdays.
It had never before ocurred to me that one could be deprived of the knowledge a birthday provides. Age was apparently one of the things white people of the time used to trivialize the slaves existence and rights. The word trivialize comes to mind because 'animalize' simply doesn't exist. Because the way I see it, slavery began on the basis that one race was superior to another. And by superior I mean 'more human'. And what better way to demonstrate, not one's superiority but rather demise someone else's, than through the depravation of such trivial things, as birthdays are. Knowing ones age is such a natural thing to me, that I can't imagine living without knowing it. And now that I think about it, parents could very easily lie about their childrens birthday, what could ever be reason for such a lie, is a whole other story.

"A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappinness to me even during childhood. The white children couldt tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege." (Location 428 of 2239).

On the bright side of things, if the U.S. were Alice's Wonderland, then all slaves would be part of a never ending celebration: Have a very merry unbirthday!

2. Mother-Child Long Distance Relationships.
The second 'thing' that particularly caught my attention was the mother-child separating technique. There exists the possibility of having to grow up without one or both parents in life. Today, accidents bring forth such circumstances. Then, white people did. The obvious difference being that today, if one's parents are not around, other individuals will in one way or another assume or provide the mother and or father figures that are so vital in a person's life and specially his or her upbringing. I call it a technique, because again, it is the white's way of trivializing the slaves. In this case, differentiating from the birthday depravation technique, there is a specific area of a humans life being demoralized, or how I prefer to call it: animalized. Said area is the following: the bond between mother and child, from which compassion, love and the deepest and sincerest form of affection, surpassing love, can and will flourish.

"For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for a child." (Location 439 of 2239).

The lack of unconditional love, typical and natural of a mother towards her child, can be catastrophic in the early development of an individual, because no guidance is like a mothers'. An individuals values highly depend on the upbringing provided in the first decade of a persons life. This in turn affects their behaviors and tendencies of the future. Thus, the separation of mother and child is a technique for making of slaves more animal than human individuals.

Another form of trivialization I found throughout the first two chapters of the narrative was the way Douglass himself approached the two subjects previously mentioned. Each topic got by far one page of explanation, description and analysis. This struck me as a sign of an indifferent tone exercised by Douglass. Although, to be fair, this seems to be a recurring tone which enables deep emotion to be expressed through vocabulary and direct emphasis, rather than tone. Regardless of this fact, my first impression of Douglass's thoughts on the matter was that he thought such details of slave life to be trivial and of no potent importance.

So you see, triviality all around. And more directly associated with my Mom's Trivia Today! fun, facts such as slaves being separated from their mothers since infancy and their deprivation of their birthdays, should be included as fun or random facts of todays "the least you know about a subject, the better, so here have a fun fact" culture. Beacuse at the end of the day, these are just two of a million facts about slavery in the U.S. Two of a million questions that can appear in my Mom's mail inbox, within a Trivia Today Question of the Day email.

Metablogpost

This is my blog post about Slate's blog post about blog posts.

The young generations of today have grown up surrounded by an exponential progress in technology, and since its basically all they've ever known, they do not question what it means for humankind. I believe technology has only encouraged the lazy side of humans to emerge more often. I know people who barely know how to spell and even write in an understandable script when denied the use of a laptop. Students who become the exceptions in Standarized Tests and AP Exams, because of so and so condition that allows them to only be understood in print through the use of a technological device rather than pen and paper. My point for this blog post is the following: the shortcuts that technology has enabled us to use in our daily lives has lowered the standards for the understanding of the technology itself. I think people don't understand simple concepts such as the difference between a blog and a blog post, not because they're incapable, but because they don't deign to even attempt to understand it. Western civilization, wrapped in all its technological cushions, is paving the way for a culture that instead of wanting to understand, simply assumes that because of similarities, two very different things can be classified as one and the same. Notice how this is something that happens with rather new concepts. People don't confuse an article with a magazine; they confuse a blog with a blog post. These are examples Slate shows us in his blog post about blog posts. It is nonetheless irrefutable that technology has its perks, and to the educational system blogging is one of them. Regardless, learning about blogging and its use is as important as the material being shared and blogged about.

Absolute Meaningless Nothing

Nothing

By Janne Teller