Being a Comic Book Superhero=Awesome

This is my last blog and I have no idea what to write about. I was thinking about Persepolis, but that's what the rest of you lovely people already wrote about. Then I thought about it being a graphic novel, and then I thought about comic books, and then I thought about summer. Last summer I was in a musical called Starmites and it was pretty much the greatest thing ever.

It was about a huge comic book nerd who wishes she lived in her comic book world. She dreamed of being a Starmite and saving Innerspace. Eventually she gets sucked into this world and they are trying to kill her. She thinks that she can't do it, but in the end she defeats the bad guy Shak Graa.

This actually has a connection to Pan's Labyrinth. When Eleanor gets transferred to Innerspace, she is called Milady. Milady is the object of the Starmites' quest, and what Shak-Graa needs to destroy in order to rule all. In Pan's Labyrinth Ofelia has a quest to find a key and go through a labyrinth under the name Princess Moanna. It's really not that similiar, but I noticed it when watching the film.

The play was a ton of fun to be in. Playing a comic book superhero really has no limits. The costumes and makeup were insanely colorful, and we wore these light up stars on our costumes that were sound activated. It was pretty sweet. The best thing about playing a comic book character is that you can act completely insane and no one can tell you you're overacting. Superhero comic books are often written to be insane and unrealistic and it was just a lot of fun to play that.

Just Dance, It'll Be Okay.

We've focused a lot on motifs in this class. Catcher in the Rye and Jane Eyre were crawling with them. After reading Feed, I noticed there was a motif of dancing.

The main character Titus would malfunction (make himself high by overflowing his feed), and he connected that to rain. He said he and his girlfriend danced in it like rain. Later in the book, Titus's girlfriend makes a bucket list, and number one is dancing. Number three is dancing in a nightclub.

When I tried to figure out what this meant, I immediately thought of Just Dance by Lady Gaga. The whole song is basically about getting wasted and dancing.

Violet understands that the Earth is dying and there are all these problems going on. Dancing for her is just kind of a release for all these issues. It is the only thing that's left in the world that isn't controlled by the feed. Violet is starting to lose her ability to move though because of the feed. Dancing was the only way she was able to relieve stress and be carefree.

In the words of Gaga, "Just dance, it'll be okay."

Literature on Drugs

Everyone has seen Alice in Wonderland. All the colors and strange characters, and not to mention a catapillar smoking a hookah. When you're a kid you just find it interesting. It's a disney movie so it has to be innocent right? Well, that's false.
There are so many different theories out there about if the author Lewis Carroll was on acid while he wrote Alice in Wonderland. I researched it and found out that it's not true that he was on acid, because acid wasn't even discovered until many years later. But, through my research I did come across that Carroll had many migranes and was on the drug Opium. Opium is known to cause vivid dreams. There are some sites that refute this, but I believe it. Lewis Carroll was a mathematician. He either just had creative explosion one day, or he took something.
A couple weeks ago I saw a play called "Still Life With Iris." It starts out with a girl living in a very colorful world, where people make storms and flowers and catch the moon. Everyone wears coats that keep hold of all their memories. Once they take their coats off, they don't know who they are anymore. Iris gets kidnapped and taken to a black and white world to live with the Goode family. The Goode family insists on having the best of everything. They only wear one shoe, the best shoe. Iris hates this world and runs away to a beach, where she meets a pirate gypsy woman and Mozart. Maybe it's just me, but I definately felt like I was tripping while I was watching it.

This blog really has nothing to do with anything we're doing in class right now, but I just wanted to write it for funsies. It's literature, and this is a literature class after all.

I do have one connection. If the Goode family found something that was not the best, they would send it to the cave. In one part of the play, they show all the people that have been sent to the dungeon. They all look hot damn messes. The cave was crawling with Bertha Masons.

Wrongs of Passage: Sixteen Candles.

I believe what she was saying is true for the most part. I don't really understand what she was saying with the age part though. I relate my "sweet sixteen" to the movie Sixteen Candles. I was at a swim meet that weekend and like maybe three people said happy birthday to me. I wasn't with any of my family or any of my real friends. It was probably the worst birthday ever. I did crash a redneck wedding though, that was fun... until we almost got arrested. That wasn't too fun. It all turned up from there though. A month later I got my driver's license and the same day I got a 2009 Chevy Cobalt. I was feeling pretty optimistic that day, expecially because the car was yellow.
Anyways, I think that the age thing is a fine example, but still it's not 100% accurate. Once you turn a certain age, that doesn't mean you're going to grow up any faster.

I guess my rite of passage will be when I go off to college. I'm shy and dependent, and I'm going to have to change that before I go off to live on my own without parents telling me to do things. This is a positive rite because I will be independent and I will be alot more outgoing. That's something I want to do now, I just have no motivation. College will push me to be what I want to be.

Final Reflection of Jane Eyre

Plain Jane has had a pretty rough life. She had no parents, no money, and hardly any happiness. She had to deal with her evil aunt and cousins, being judged for being a governess, and her low self esteem. She comes across Mr. Rochester, who is still less than kind to her. Finally, she comes to terms with Mr. Rochester and they fall in love. I feel like she became very happy for the first time in her life. Then it comes out that he is already married to crazy lady Bertha. Poor Jane.

If I were Jane, I would stay with Rochester. He was just too ashamed to tell Jane that he was already married. He obviously didn't love Bertha, he loved Jane. He didn't really do anything wrong towards Jane, and so if I were her, I would still stay with him.

I liked the book for the most part. Sometimes it got quite slow, but other times it was very interesting. I really liked Jane as a character and I was glad that the book was written in first person so that I knew exactly what she was thinking. I did not like how Adele spoke in French. I know that she evidently didn't say anything important, but it was still distracting. I wish that the book was a bit shorter for the most part.

I guess this is a good book to be taught. It is one of the most famous pieces of literature, and this is a literature class. It was a perfect demonstration of motifs as well. However, it was quite long. It was hard to get caught up if you were behind. I also wish that it had more of an interesting plot. I got bored after a while because she would just be talking to Mrs. Fairfax for like 10 pages. I would pick a shorter book.

Rochester=Holden

In Chapter 14, Jane and Rochester had an indepth conversation. Rochester tells Jane that she is "not pretty any more than I am handsome." Then he calls her dumb. Jane just kind brushes it off like it's no big deal, even though it was kind of rude.  Rochester then tells Jane that he is superior to her, and that his thoughts are "cankering as a rusty nail." Rochester envies Jane's "peace of mind", "clean conscience", and "unpolluted memory". Rochester is 20 years older than Jane and has indeed experienced more. This part of the story may explain why Rochester hasn't been the warmest guy.
My theory to why he is acting this way is because of Adele's mother. He tells Jane about Celine, who abandoned her daughter, Adele. Rochester doesn't want Adele to be an orphan so he takes her in, come to find out that there is possibility that Adele is his daughter. He is mean to Jane because he is jealous of her innocence. I feel like Rochester wishes he could just be young forever. Holden thought the same way.

Inspiration for Other Classics

Jane Eyre was written in 1847. It is one of the most famous pieces of literature in history. As you read you may pick up on some similarities to other stories. Was this coincidence or were they inspired by this story.

When Jane is a little orphan girl, she lives with her aunt and cousins, her "evil" aunt and cousins. Cinderella similarily is an orphan who lives with her stepmom and stepsisters, "evil" stepmom and stepsisters.

As Jane grows older, she gets a job as a governess. At first she hates Adele's father (or so they say), but then she grows to fall in love with him, even though he is planning on marrying Blanche Ingram. In the Sound of Music, Maria gets a job as a governess, and really doesn't like the Captain very much. As time goes on, Maria and the Captain fall in love, even though he was planning on marrying the baroness.

These stories have a lot of similarities with eachother. Often authors derive their ideas from other stories and archetypes.

Dumbledore and Holden are gay?... didn't see that coming.

Holden is everyone's favorite pessimist. Throughout the entire book, he is constantly complaining about something. The only thing he likes is kids. Why does he have such aggression? It could be because of his brother dying. It could also be because he is a closet homosexual and he can't come to terms with it.

Holden often mentioned himself as "confused." What was he so confused about though? Also, he described Stradlater, Ackley, and Spencer's bodies a little too vividly. Notice he never really described any of the girls' bodies. He read into Carl Luce and Mr. Antolini as "flits", even though they may have not been. He complained about not being able to "get sexy with a girl" and he did not even have sex with Sunny when he so clearly had the chance to.

Some closet homosexuals that are unhappy with the fact tend to be homophobic. Holden was afraid to sleep sometimes because he was afraid to wake up and be gay. These feelings can fuel up and make them hate on everything, expecially other homosexuals. There was a couple theories of Hitler being a closet gay, since he sent all homosexuals to concentration camps.

If J.D. Salinger did intend for Holden to be gay, he did a better job at expressing it than J.K. Rowling did. In 2006 J.K. Rowling randomly mentions that Dumbledore has been gay all these years. The thing is there really is not much proof for this. He mentions once about his relationship with his "friend" Grindelwald. He also ties his beard with a little ribbon, which kind of makes him look like he's going to Hogwart's senior prom.

Bloggin' on Holden

"I wrote about my brother Allie's baseball mitt. He's dead now. You'd have liked him. He was terrifically intelligent. He was the nicest and he never got mad at anybody. People with red hair are supposed to get mad easily, but Allie never did, and he had very red hair. He watched me play golf behind a fence. That's the kind of red hair he had."

I chose this scene because I feel like Allie was the only thing in Holden's life that made him happy. It seems like he doesn't really like his parents much, and he thinks that D.B. is a prostitute. The way he talks about Allie makes it seem like they were best friend. Throughout this whole part, he didn't say one swear word. This I think was a sign of being genuine. It definately got the readers attention.

He wrote about his brother's baseball glove for Stradlater's composition. When Stradlater reads this, he gets furious, and Holden just kind of brushes it off. Salinger is trying to make the reader feel sorry for him. Stradlater calls it a "goddam baseball glove" and tells Holden that he always gets things "backasswards." Holden just told us about something that meant a lot to him, and Stradlater was a total a-hole about it.

Rolemodels in Childhood

Sisters are supposed to be best friends I guess. That's what they always say at least. This was not my case though. They spent most of their time just laughing at me because I was so much younger than them. They were in college when I was in seventh grade, which is the year I had to leave my home town and move to a whole new place: McFarland. I had absolutely no one: expecially not a sister that could be my friend. For about three years, I felt lost in McFarland. I was too ashamed to be myself, and I hardly knew anyone that shared the same interests as me. I went year after year, being this person that I truly wasn't. I used to dress a certain way each year to try and make someone think I was cool. I failed though. Until one year I met this girl, two grades ahead of me: and she was everything I wanted to be. She was artistic, pretty, amazing singing, amazing on stage, and incredibly intelligent. It wasn't long until we became best friends. Sadly, only about a year and half later after we met, she went to college. Now I talk to her about three times a month. It's really sad how things changed so fast like that. But I'm still thankful that I got to meet her. She helped me find out who I really was. That is when children take their step into adulthood. When they figure out who they are and how they want people to think of them. Some people find out on their own, but other people get by with a little help from their friends.

Visions Of Childhood

Each of the stories depicted childhood and adolescence in an interesting way. They showed that children are able to learn from their parents, whether it's acting like them or opposite. Most of the stories had the theme of growing up to fast. In Sutton Pie Safe, the father plays an active role in his son's life, and tries to teach him that no money value can pay for the idea of family. Every Little Hurricane, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? and For Esme all have the common idea of growing up too fast because of your family life. Bottlecaps was simply a short reflection on what the average child would do, which would be having collections.

A movie that depicts childhood in an interesting way is Little Miss Sunshine. It is a story about a dysfunctional family who drives to New Mexico in a broken down VW bus in order for 8 year old Olive to perform in the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant. Olive is a pleasantly plump girl who wears large glasses and has a very interesting sense of style. All of the rest of the little girls who perform in the pageant are tiny, airbrushed, and have perfect hair and teeth. Olive definately stands out. Her older brother is very against her doing this pageant because he thinks that it is very corrupt. Olive's mom tells him that this is what she loves and that she should be able to express herself, no matter what it is. Olive performs a very risque rendition of "Superfreak." The pageant officials try to get her off the stage, but the family supports Olive by getting up and dancing ridiculously with her.

Although this doesn't directly relate to any of the stories we read, I think it's parallel with the concepts the stories were getting at. Olive wants to be a pageant girl and be pretty. She's trying to grow up too fast. It also gets at the idea of family. Her father is going bankrupt, her uncle just tried to commit suicide, her brother won't speak, her grandpa snorts heroine, and her mom fails to keep them all happy. Despite all of their problems, they teach Olive to do what she loves, and forget what anyone else thinks.

My Forgettable Childhood

I grew up with two sisters, five and seven years older than me, so I always felt a constant pressure to act older and not be such a baby. I don't remember much from my childhood because of it, but this story sticks out in my mind for some reason.

I was about eight years old, and my sister's and I all shared a bathroom. I was a stereotypical annoying little sister who liked to look through their things. So I shut the door and started looking through their drawers and I found this beautiful looking contraption: a hairbrush. It may sound lame and all, but this was a different kind of hairbrush. Instead of being just a normal flat hairbrush, it was round. It blew my mind. So I decided to start using it. It looked just liked a curling iron, and for some reason, I thought it would work the same way. So I'm standing in the bathroom twirling my hair around this brush, and when I was ready to take it out, nothing happen. I gave it a harder tug, but it was definately stuck. I completely paniced because I knew if I'd ask for help to get it out, my sister would be mad at me for using her stuff. I didn't know what else to do, and the first thing that caught my eye was a shiny pair of scissors sitting in that drawer. Snip Snip Snip. The brush was now in my hand, along with half of my of my long blonde hair. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I saw something was very unsymmetrical. I knew I had screwed up. An hour later, I finally decided to fess up to what I did. I sat on the stairs, whipped up a batch of fake tears, and finally when my sister found me I said, "All my hair is gone!" She laughed at me and just said, "Bridget, it's okay... everyone's hair falls out sometimes." Finally, I went up stairs and held a garbage can to my sister's nose. She looked down to see hair that could make an entire wig. If I wasn't the laughing stock of the family already, I was now.

Hello.

My name is Bridget and I like art, music, photography, and feathers. I love summer and the sun, and I also like fall because I like trees. I absolutely hate snow though. I'm pretty unathletic, but for some reason I swim. 

After high school I plan to go to college out of Wisconsin, hopefully to the University of Minnesota. I intend on majoring in art education and theater. I would also like to study photojournalism. If none of those jobs work out for me, I'm going to be a tattoo artist.

I like all different kinds of music, but my favorites would be: Ben Folds, Death Cab For Cutie, Florence and the Machine, The Beatles, and Bright Eyes--just to name a few.

My favorite book is probably To Kill A Mockingbird. I was probably the only person that actually liked that book when we had to read it. I also am really interested in anything Shakespeare wrote.