doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
books
favorite books
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If you could have only read four books during your grade school years, which four would you have chosen?
I was a voracious reader. I still am, I suppose.
It would be impossible for me to choose just four books from my grade school years. My tastes and my reading levels changed so much that I went from very basic kindergarten primers to very advanced, higher level high school reading by the time I was in the 8th grade.
If I think back, though, on the books that brought me the most joy, it was typically Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. I loved the adventures they went on and the mysteries they had to solve.
I also have a fondness for “Charlotte’s Web”. I saw that a new movie was coming out this winter and I’m looking forward to seeing it because of the fondness I have for it.
dust bowl
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Yesterday, on my way home from work (yes, I went home sick), I was listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Diane was interviewing the author, Timothy Egan, who has written The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Egan shares the stories of the desolation and depression of the people who lived in the Great Plains during the 1930s.
I was touched by how people were brought together to battle this natural disaster. I was also touched by how they endured one thing after another: the winds, the dust, the grasshoppers and, finally, the thing that really broke them, the Depression. They survived everything until they lost everything to the banks.
A caller spoke of how he watched his mother and the other women put towels in window sills and under doors to stop the dust from coming in. Egan asked if any of us could imagine how that would feel, to have an ever-present film of dust over everything.
I live in a mini dust bowl. The winds blow here often and hard. I live in an area that has relatively few trees because it used to be bean fields. What was left was miles and miles of soil that lifts into the air easily.
Constants:
While I don’t live in the same kind of situation those people had to suffer through, I know how the presence of dust weighs on someone. It’s an irritant at first. Then it slowly becomes something that you sigh at and move on.
There is nothing you can do.
the tools we use
06 years ago
In the same Harvey Keitel movie from the entry below, Keitel’s character tells another would-be writer that typewriters force writers to pay attention to each word carefully because the writer can’t backspace, highlight, and delete. The entire process is much more time-consuming with a typewriter.
So, this got me to thinking. When the typewriter was invented, did writers who wrote with ink, longhand, say the same thing to those kids who used that new technology?
“It’s not the same, kid, if you don’t get ink stains on your fingers and hands. There is more power in the word when you’re getting dirty.”
Is there validity to this? Were we more careful when we wrote with ink and a quill? Did we think about the words and choose them wisely? When we started using manufactured pens, did our words lose some of their meaning or impact? Did the typewriter allow some leniency in mastering the writer’s job? Do computers detract from the power of the written word?
Sure, there are times when I long for the simplicity of days gone by. When kids could ride their bikes after dark and parents wouldn’t have to worry that they would be abducted or assaulted. When life seemed safer. I do long for those times – sometimes.
But I’m a technology junkie. I like my digital camera (although I still have 2 manuals that I love just as much) and I love my iPod and my jump drive and my pda and my laptops and my desktops. I love technology. I like seeing the new and innovative things that arise out of someone’s need to make something work easier for him or herself.
I don’t think it’s the technology that hampers the writing. A good writer is a good writer no matter what tools are employed. It is the willingness to explore every avenue of the mind and create something worth reading that makes a good writer.
non-moving images
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I couldn’t really call this “moving images” or “moving pictures” since they aren’t moving (although, the shot to the right was taken while I sat in the back of my brother’s van, going down I-17 at 75mph). Anyway, I wanted to play with words and this photo did that perfectly for me.
As I’ve stated previously, I’ve been thinking a lot about identity and how we are defined by our words. I’ve also been thinking about how we are defined by the photos we publish, either as stand-alone or alongside our words. What do they say about us?
If I post a whimsical photograph of my niece and nephew, does that tell you something about me? Does it tell you that I adore them? Does it tell you that I have fun with them? Does it tell you that I want to catch them in humiliating poses that I can torture them with when they are teenagers (ha! They’ll have tortured me so much by then that I won’t have the energy!).
If I post an image of a broken window in a post about refugees, what does it add to the words? Does it make you think about the broken spirits of people? Does it make you wonder what the circumstances are? Does it add to the overall effect of the writing?
I carefully choose the photographs for my entries. They mean something to me in relation to what I am writing. For homelessness, I chose the image of a man who was sleeping on a bench in downtown Flagstaff. I was down there at 6 a.m. this summer and his snores could be heard across the square. I didn’t want to intrude but I also couldn’t resist photographing him. The way he was slumped over, his bike balanced, his solitude, it all spoke to me. When I chose that image for the piece, I felt that it fit perfectly. I felt that it added to what I wanted to say about not having a bed to sleep in.
Books are made into movies all of the time. Just this year, Jarhead, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia, and more, I’m sure, are movies. How does that add to the value of the printed word? Do moving images detract or enhance our appreciation of the books?
I didn’t like Jarhead the book and I didn’t like Jarhead the movie (although I liked the movie slightly more than the book). They didn’t complement one another for me. The movie didn’t add any rhetorical value to the book for me.
The Harry Potter movies have long been a favorite. They add a depth to the books that my mind fills in. Now I get to see it in living color. The same is true of the Lord of the Rings books. I can only hope the Narnia books will be done justice (because they were favorites when I was a kid and I still own copies of them).
One of the things I love about photography is that I can capture a feeling or a sentiment that I can’t necessarily put into words. As the old addage says, “A picture is worth a 1000 words.”
through it all
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I’ve just finished reading Goat by Brad Land for one of my classes.
Ouch. That’s what I say. This book hurt my soul to the core.
Maybe it’s because I understand him far more than anyone should. I’ve been there. I’ve done crazy things.
He writes:
…I know I’m too much for anyone, that if I let myself, I’d love them all, I’d think they could fix me. But I know they can’t, and it’s enough, because every so often when a girl kisses me, touches my hand, my face, I remember that the world has light.”
I’ve been told, time and again, that I’m too much for people. Just too much.
I’ve been afraid like Brad Land. I’ve lived with that perpetual churning of the stomach everytime I exited my front door, afraid of what the world held for me that day.
I’ve been called those names that will forever echo in my head: stupid, ugly, fat, liar, bitch. I forgot where the labels ended and I began. Words do hurt me.
I’ve bled at the hands of another, bruised, beaten, shaking with every turn.
A young woman in class today said she felt pity for Land. From the beginning to the end of the book, she felt pity. And I wondered…would she feel pity for me, too?
Maybe she doesn’t understand what torment does to the mind. What fear can do to the soul. How overwhelming it can be.
And yet, we want to go on. We cling to things. Land filled his pockets with trinkets of life to remind himself he was still among the living and to cling to the smallest remnants of sanity. I filled my life with my dogs, my photographs, my books. These were sanity.
Like Land, I’m a worrier. I worry about everything. Everything.
I worry if I’m going to fail at grad school, not fulfill my dreams. I worry that I’ll be alone forever. I worry that people at work don’t like me. I worry that I’ve upset my mother.
And through it all, like Land, I had someone to turn to. He had one brother, I had two. When he was scared, that was who he could cry to. When I’m scared, I know they will listen to my cries and try to help me through it. They’ve saved my life, much like Land’s brother saved him.
And in that one single thing, we are wealthy and blessed. Fear does not have to own us because we have something so much more powerful than that.
We have love.
elitist?
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We are reading Jarhead in one of my classes this week. We are looking at prospective audiences, themes, reasons for the writing, reasons for reading, types of language used, etc. I love all of these kinds of things. I love healthy debate over literature and like looking at things from a different perspective.
I also like playing devil’s advocate.
I found the book to be a bit dull. I found it to be sophomoric. I didn’t read the brilliance that New York Times or other such esteemed critics read.
I stated this in class today. I also stated that I felt the author used elementary language and spoke down to the audience. I have a feeling he even dummied it down for some reason.
That offends me.
My classmates took offense to the things I said. They liked the book. They liked the level of language used in it. They reminded me that the majority of Americans read at a 6th grade level. They reminded me that Marine “grunts”, for the most part, are probably not educated.
I wondered if I’m an elitist when it comes to literature.
I love William Shakespeare and Jane Austen and Langston Hughes. I also love the books that I call “beach reading” – Stephen King – Okay…I just went to my six bookcases to find some of these “beach readings” to give some titles and couldn’t find any. Maybe I sell them to the used bookstore to get other books. I dunno. But you know the ones I mean – the books you can get at the grocery store book racks. Silly, fun books that you can finish in an afternoon.
Maybe I am a snob. As I perused my bookcases, I noticed a proliferation of Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker – all authors who deal with serious social issues within their beautiful prose. I noticed the rows of feminist theory, the tomes of English Literature, Romantic poetry, and anthologies of women writers.
Really, what it boils down to is that I like to be engaged. A writer doesn’t have to use polysyllabic words to engage me. It’s the nuances, the depth, the subtelties of language that draw me in. Double entendres. Symbolism. Metaphors. Foreshadowing. The classics of creative writing.
I like language and I like to see it used in an inventive way.
If I wanted something straight, we’d be having a conversation. When I read, I want to be involved.