Anne Moore's Life

This story was very interesting to me for two reasons. One, because I think the life that Anne Moore led was extremely adventurous and carefree. She had nothing to hold on to and nothing tied her down to one place, even if she kept revisiting places like Seattle and San Francisco. She traveled everywhere she wanted and it didn't matter if she had no money or nowhere to stay. On one hand I wish I was more like her but on the other I don't want to feel that lack of responsibility. Anne had so many tragic things happen to her throughout her life and it seemed that it didn't even influence her. At the beginning of the story I admired Anne and her loose ways, but by the end I felt very sorry for her. Through all of her adventures and lovers, she never found happiness. Or at least it doesn't seem so. She had such issues with thinking about her future, she even said it was "the catastrophe looming ahead"(86). I think that in order to find happiness you need to imagine your future and to have goals, which she lacked, she had nothing to strive for so she had nothing to accomplish.

The Lazarus Project

Rora's photographs were a main theme in this section of the book. Brik is talking about how him and Mary used to look at pictures together early on in their marriage. Rora always has his camera on him and is always snapping pictures, especially of Brik and Mary. Brik used to look at the pictures as hope into the future, but now he says "Now I didn't care about the future in which I would be looking at Rora's photos. The pictures would offer no revelations; I would have seen all that mattered already, because I was present at the moment of their creation"(228). Now that Brik watches Rora take these pictures and make such beautiful art, he doesn't feel the need to go back and look at them. He is no longer intrigued by them. I think the pictures are a good representation of Brik and Rora's journey. Obviously the whole thing is documented, but it is a representation of how Rora feels about parts of the journey. I think that you can capture emotion in a lot of pictures and whatever emotion he is conveying in his photos are meaningful to their journey.

Pogrom-an organized massacre, especially of Jews.

The Bridegroom

This article was very interesting to me because it displayed how the tolerance of homosexuality has chanced throughout time.  In the story, the officials think that homosexuality is equivalent to syphilis.  They lacked understanding and because of their ignorance they mistreated the men who were apart of this “men’s club”.  It was sad how Boawen said that he was only there for emotional reasons, but admitted to wanting a more sexual relationship with one of the men.  I never thought about how for homosexual men before the level of acceptance for this lifestyle rose.  It seemed to me that Beina and Boawen’s mother were the only supportive ones.

The Same River Twice, pp 110- 152

          Family is a very prevalent theme throughout this part of the reading. Wether it be about his pregnant wife, Rita, or his brother, Dane, Chris displays his respect for family. First, we start out reading about Rita and the unborn chid. Chris is very avid about wanting his firstborn to be a boy since he is the "firstborn of a firstborn of a firstborn". He is very nervous about having the baby, not so much about the actual birth, but about raising it. When he talks about the chance of Rita dying through giving birth, he is selfish about it because it seems the main reason he is scared is about raising the child alone. It seems a big difference between mothers and fathers is that men are more nervous about raising or messing up a child and women are just ready to have the baby and don't see that as an issue.
          We also learn more about Dane in this part of the book. Dane and Chris undergo many problems over the years that result in long periods without speaking. I think they suffer the classic jealousy issue than many siblings, and especially siblings of the same gender have. Dane is younger and gets his act together long before Chris does, and Dane is annoyed by that. Chris doesn't fully understand why Dane gets so upset with him and thinks it is because his parents loved the firstborn more, but I think it is because Dane may be upset about never having that role model older brother to look up to.

Quote I really liked: "I felt full of myself, like a sock puppet inside out."

Vocabulary Words:
Hodad (pg 121): a nonsurfer who spends time at beaches masquerading as a surfer.
Grubstake (pg 146): provisions, gear, etc., furnished to a prospector on conditionof participating in the profits of any discoveries.
Sextant (pg 115): an astronomical instrument used to determine latitude andlongitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especiallythe altitudes of sun, moon, and stars.

The Crying of Lot 49- Chapter 5

In this chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 we really start to see how everything is more and more connected. Oedipa goes to Berkeley in this chapter and starts to see more horns. She sees a muted horn in a bathroom stall with the words in the beginning of the chapter and then later again in a laundromat and a bathroom at an airport. By now, we obviously know that the horn must mean something but we don't know what. Later in the chapter an old man gives oedipa a letter to deliver to the "horn people" because he is too sick to deliver it himself. In this chapter we also learn about D.E.A.T.H or "Don't ever antagonize the horn" which  is ironic because to me, it seems like the horn is antagonizing Oedipa which in turn is making her curious about the horn. The horn is so present in this novel I am very interested to see what the horn means and who the "horn people are".

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

      This story was very interesting to read because it really hit home with me, being a college student and all. The first lines, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix" explains what Ginsberg saw during his college years and what so many of us witness or even go through during school. I think his personal testimony of what he may have witnessed was a bit more extreme than what I see here at Clemson, but all the same, I see people and sometimes myself, waste away our intelligence through partying and not taking school seriously enough.
      "Who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy" is one of my favorite lines in this story. Ginsberg uses intense imagery throughout "Howl" and this line displays his perfect choice of words wonderfully. Another line stood out to me, "Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years' animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of time!". I literally laughed out loud when I read this line because it is so true about what young people think they are having or going through during college and when you think about it coming from Ginsberg's point of view it seems like a joke. I feel like he is being sarcastic and I ended up laughing at myself. By the end of the poem I wasn't sure if Ginsberg had been talking about Carl Solomon the entire time, or just towards the end. I was confused as to if all of the experiences mentioned in the beginning had been Carl Solomon's, or just anyone Ginsberg saw wasting away their college years.  I really enjoyed reading this although at some point I was a little shocked at the vulgarity or I didn't understand parts of it, but as a whole, I liked this story.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

To me, this poem is about how the author perceives death. In the beginning of the poem he says that the world will either end in fire or ice but doesn't tell exactly which way he thinks his world will end. Wether it is in fire or ice he sounds content by the end of the poem in the last two lines "Is also great, And would suffice".
When I think of the world ending in fire, I think of pandemonium and a more chaotic, uncontrollable end. Ice sounds more calm but also more cold, in a sad or bitter way. The author sound content, I think, because it doesn't necessarily matter how the world ends but more of what happens after the world ends.