The Walking Dead

There was a particular part that I want to talk about, and it's the last part of the graphic novel, beginning with when Shane punches Rick. It's when you finally get to see all the pent up energy and emotions from all the characters present themselves. Shane's face when Lori calls him a "fucking lunatic" is heart wrenching. Instead of getting angry, Shane is heartbroken and shocked, and this makes it feel so real to the reader and it made me feel honestly bad for Shane, despite Shane's bad attitude towards Rick. I compare this compassionate feeling I have towards the characters in the graphic novel to the video game, and there's such a large difference. In the video game I have no feelings for any of the characters. Everyone just gets angry at each other in the video game, and it's very graphic in an almost stomach-churning way... I didn't feel any emotional attachment to the story.

Flame Alphabet part 2

"As she got dressed and made her way out of my room, Marta looked at me plainly, as if she was curious, in the detached, scientific sense, why I would have any interest in hurting her. I'd seen that face before, and I hadn't realized it was a face that could be shared, used by more than one person, but it had appeared on Claire, and I had always thought that it was hers alone, to use only on those special occasions when I had disappointed her. But apparently this was a face that Marta had access to as well."

As I was looking at others' blog posts, I did notice that I picked the same passage as Alex, however, I had a few other reasons for picking this passage. Alex pointed out that Marcus has this way of describing scenes and feelings in a way that really puts you in the story, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. However, the main reason I picked this passage was because I think it reflects on relationships, and the way people view their partners. Sam sees Marta giving her this look, and he's surprised by the fact that it's the same as a look that Claire has given him, and that they can make the same facial expression in response to what he's done. I feel like a lot of times, when we have a relationship with someone, whether it's a friend or a significant other, we want that person for ourselves, and think that the way they act is special to your relationship and no one else can mimic it. This isn't true of course-- we're all much more similar than we think in respect to our body language and facial expressions, and this passage exemplifies that. It's a very truthful passage.

The Flame Alphabet

"What are the operative motifs from mythology when parents take leave of a child? Is there not some standard departure imagery offered by the fables?" (8)

This quote caught my attention because it is a fair question to ask... are there any tales of parents leaving their children in mythology and what sort of imagery do these stories present? I have close to zero knowledge about mythology and fables aside from what we learned in kindergarten, but I don't seem to recall any stories where it is the parents who leave the children in a time of trouble. There are apocalyptic stories where all the adults die, or where the children leave and live in seclusion from the parents (Blackhole being a good example of this), but it seems like too cruel a concept for parents to leave their children... I remember I found this to be a little heartbreaking as I was reading it, even though it was just the beginning of the story and I didn't know any of the characters. It's a foreign concept, and I'd be interested to know if there are any stories from the past that are at all similar to it.

Bounty

When reading Bounty, it was all too obvious to me the similarities between this and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Although the language used in bounty isn't made up like it is in A Clockwork Orange, the word choice is reminiscent of older times, and there are a lot of words that I had to look up because I had never heard them before, which reminded me of when I was reading A Clockwork Orange and it felt like I was learning an entirely new language. The voice and tone of the two readings are also comparable. Other aspects that are similar are the use of drugs-- in this regard, what sparked my memory back to A Clockwork Orange the most was the use of the word "toot." It certainly isn't a word that people use now when they use cocaine (or is it? I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable on the subject), and the word has an almost comical feel to it, much like the words used in A Clockwork Orange. Although the stories unfold very differently, it's clear to see that these authors had similar ideas of a post-apocalyptic world.

Black Hole

I wasn't able to get a picture on here, but I chose the part just after Chris and Rob have finished having sex, where Chris realizes that Rob has "the bug." I think this, along with any other time the disease is contracted, represents a sort of transition into being sexually active, or even adulthood. The mutations that the kids acquire after having sex are, in a way, representative of what happens after someone loses their virginity. People view losing their virginity differently, and to be honest I don't view it in this way, but I think, in this story, these mutations are representative of the sort of sinful stain that's left on you after you do something that is so historically shameful. Not only that, but once someone contracts the bug, they are usually forced to go live with the other infected kids in the forest, which is sort of like how someone who's had sex might be classified as "slutty" and thus is shunned from the abstinant population.

Ragnarok

"There were pictures and songs of gentle Jesus meek and mild. In one of them he preached in a clearing to a congregation of attentive curly animals, rabbits, a fawn, a squirrel, a magpie. The animals were more real than the divine-human figure. The thin child tried to respond to the picture, and failed.
They were taught to say praters. The thin child had an intuition of wickedness as she felt what she spoke wicked into a cotton-wool cloud of nothingness.
She was logical child, as children go. She did not understand how such a nice, kind, good God as the one they prayed to, could condemn the whole earth for sinfulness and flood it, or condemn his only Son to a disgusting death on behalf of everyone. This death did not seem to have done much good...
The thin child thought that these stories... were both human make-ups... Neither aspect made her want to write, or fed her imagination. They numbed it."

I picked this passage because I thought it gave a lot of insight into the girl's young mind. She's so young, yet she's already got the wisdom and logic to see that maybe the things she's being taught aren't true. I see her as being very smart for being skeptical, and in my opinion, people should learn to be more skeptical of what teachers teach us, because there are things to be gained from questioning what's presented as "true;" it's important to discover what is true for you personally.
The thin girl finds the stories from her mother's books to be more interesting than the stories taught to her in her scripture lessons, and another reason I picked this passage was because it resonated with me personally. I've tried a handful of times to devote myself to christianity, but it simply didn't click or make sense to me for many reasons, one of which is similar to the thin girl's perspective. This is highlighted in the last paragraph, and says that the stories of the religion simply do not spark the thin girl's imagination in any way.

Qur'an Selections

It was difficult to understand each of the different translations at first, but after some rereading I was able to catch on and grasp what was being said. What I found most interesting about these readings was how it talks about the stories of the other religions that are similar to the ones in the Qur'an. It says that the fact that these stories are similar to past religion's stories proves that the Qur'an is more reliable and in fact more true, because these stories have been refined throughout the years. In my opinion, and in the opinion of Bill Maher in Religulous, the fact that these stories have been repeated leads me to believe that maybe they aren't as reliable as some people may think... but that's just my opinion.

Book of Daniel

What stuck out to me most about these readings was their use of the word "apocalypse." As a result of movies and novels these days, we tend to think of apocalypse as a disaster or something of the sort, when in fact, this is one of the last definitions of the word in the dictionary! According to Dictionary.com the first definition is "revelation." This gives more meaning to the reading titled "Apocaplyse: What Disasters Reveal" by Junot Diaz, because apocalypses are truly just revelations! In the Book of Daniel, it's more specifically that these revelations are told to a prophet or someone else of importance to simply predict what will happen in the future, whether or not this future is to be disastrous or not... the word apocalypse is not what I thought it was! I've learned something new today.

Gilgamesh

I found it very interesting that Gilgamesh was 2/3 divine and 1/3 human... such an interesting division math-wise! It makes him more humanlike and relatable, but still with powers that no other man has. What I found to be most interesting was his relationship with Enkidu. He was so ruthless with his power, raping women and such, but then Enkidu came along. Suddenly his selfishness was translated to compassion for another person, and he was a different man because of it! It's not very often to hear of a selfish god crying over the death of another... but to be fair, of course, he was still 1/3 human.

Babel

When I first read Babel, although I've heard that the story is meant to represent a punishment of sorts to the people who wanted to build a tower into the heavens, I saw it more as a way of separating everyone to create more cultural backgrounds and diversity in human kind. If they were all together in the same territory and all speaking the same language, there wouldn't be different cultures, or at least not right away.
In addition, in "Babel: The Hebrew Bible and Translation," it talks about how there are a handful of translations of this story, and how it is interesting that this is the case, because by translating, you are breaking the barrier between different languages and different cultures and people, so in a way it goes slightly against God's wishes to have people speaking different languages. I just thought it was an interesting point.

Religulous

My first thought when watching Religulous was that the way in which they went about proving their point was far more effective than in the documentary we watched that followed Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. Religion is such a heavy topic, so one cannot be too careful when asking questions about other peoples' religion.. and Bill Maher managed to make his encounters with people of various faiths humorous, despite the fact that he was very forward with them and even sometimes rude. One thing that I learned from the movie was the whole deal with how there had been many religions before christianity that had a profit who was born of a virgin woman, and who died for peoples' sins and then rose on the 2nd/3rd day; those, along with many other similarities in stories across the board, in my opinion, help to largely discredit a lot of what christianity claims... because how can every religion have the same story?

Children of Men

This movie is fantastic. If you didn't watch it, please do, because it's suspenseful, intelligent, and heart wrenching, and it leaves you questioning what it even means to be fertile. In the movie, they don't exactly know why every has been infertile for 18 years, but it's pretty clear it's a helpless case and that no one will be having a baby anytime soon. It's bizarre that for some reason they aren't letting any immigrants into the country, and it makes me wonder if that would actually happen if we suddenly all became infertile. And if this actually happened, would the whole world break out in chaos and anarchy like in the movie?? It is entirely mind blowing how people could act so irrationally in response to this problem!

My Imaginary Bunker

I thought this was a bit extreme... I understand that it's her personal views and maybe she can't help feeling so down about the environment, but I just can't comprehend being so depressed about it all the time. She's obviously trying very hard to do her part, but she's never satisfied with the things she does do to help, and it's frustrating for me as a reader for her to not see that she is making a difference. I do believe that it's very important to be concerned about the environment, but there's a thin line between being responsible for the earth and feeling melancholy on a daily basis because you didn't write the book that solves global warming.

Shock Doctrine

In light of relating this to the apocalypse theme of our class, I'd like to point out that Shock Doctrine connects closely to many of the other documents we've read. Zizek and Diaz both said that after a disaster, it is finally realized by humans that we have to do something to fix the problems the caused the disaster instead of just sitting around (it's also mentioned that after a short period of time, this feeling of dedication to helping the cause fades away and we recede to our imaginary bubble of safety where we think 9/11 won't and can't happen again). Klein says a similar thing- that when people are shocked by a disaster, capitalists swoop in and attempt to reform/remake the economy, school system, etc, just as when disaster strikes, people join a cause to help rebuild a community. Klein, of course, is not saying that the swooping in of capitalists is a good thing- quite the opposite in fact- but it is a similar idea; people use disasters as an opportunity to make some sort of change.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

I would just like to touch on a specific paragraph that Burroughs talks about. He says that "The astronaut is not looking for Space, he's looking for more Time to do exactly the same things." Burrough's opinion is that an astronaut is simply looking for another place to be, almost as if to move away from his problems and the problems of the world, but in reality space only holds more space for us to put all the same problems that exist here on earth. I have never thought about space exploration in this way, but now I've been forced to wonder... What is even the purpose? I suppose one could argue that finding life (aliensss) on other planets is one of the biggest reasons. More crucial to my point is the reason that's been tossed around recently, which is that somewhere in the not-so-far-away future, earth might not be sustainable to life- due to the actions of humans- and so people are looking for a life-sustaining planet... but that raises the question: will a new planet be any different than this planet? Humans will still be the same; they will still have disregard for the place they live and soon enough that planet won't be able to sustain life either!! Then we'll all have to live on the Axiom, float around on lounge chairs, and drink cupcakes from a cup and straw. (But even in Wall-e, earth still had the ability to sustain life (how??) so I guess that's beside the point). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I now feel like I don't even understand why we are exploring space (don't judge me on my ignorance... there are probably lots of good reasons that I just don't know about). Burroughs also makes the point that once we go into space, who knows if we'll ever go back?? Like the fish who grew feet during a drought and never gave up those feet (because evolution is one-way only, says Burroughs), who knows if we would ever go back to earth once we left?

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

It took me a while to understand what Zizek was getting at, but once I understood, I couldn't help but relate his ideas to the life of a cancer patient/terminally ill person. It's true, we americans live in this huge bubble, always thinking that the bad things that happen elsewhere will never happen here. And then there is an attack, and suddenly every TV in the U.S. is broadcasting the fall of the twin towers, and we think... "but wait, things like this don't happen in America!" And I think about that kid who is diagnosed with Leukemia, and maybe he's not thinking this, but his parents are definitely thinking something along the lines of "I've known people to get Leukemia, but I never thought it would be our son." And every neighbor and friend who finds out about the diagnoses of the boy sends their condolences, but they are secretly glad that it isn't happening to their son, because they are in their own mini bubble, protecting themselves from the view of, as Zizek says, the "threatening Outside." And this family with the now-sick child, they get involved in charities revolving around Leukemia, and they support the blood drive to help other Leukemia patients... did they do this before their child got sick? No; they were living in their little bubbles, not think thinking about, well, maybe we should help these charities because nobody deserves to get sick.

'...or America will finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdue move from "Things like this should not happen here!" to "Things like this should not happen anywhere!"'

So just like the family that does donate to the LLS (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) even when their family is Leukemia-free, we, as a society, should learn to see that not only do we deserve to live in peace, but so does the rest of the world.

Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal

What I found most striking about this article was its view on "natural disasters." The name itself, of course, implies that things such as tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and all the havoc they wreak, are "natural," and therefore are not something that can be helped or prevented. Diaz points out a completely different point of view, and admittedly not a point of view I've heard of. He says these disasters are not so "natural" after all. It scares me to think that these disasters are practically brought on by humanity's blindness to the necessity of natural defenses such as coral reefs, mangroves, and forests. If we, as a society, can't even see that our destructive actions are razing lands and killing thousands of people, who's to say this won't continue until everything is in ruin, and we no longer have any natural resources to recover from the mess we're in? Hopefully that thing which Diaz hopes to happen does actually happen- where people will finally realize, after another "natural disaster," that there is something that must be done, and we will attempt to put a stop to the destruction of our land and resources.