Final Blog Post

What to write about, what to write about, what to write about, etc. etc. etc.  I could blabber on about none sense for this last post but that doesn't sound very interesting at all.  It wouldn't be worth a post if I wrote about none sense.  None sense can be interesting, though, which contradicts my previous comment.

I'm wearing a sparkly white sweater today and it makes me feel like I'm walking in a winter wonder land but there's a problem...there is no snow on the ground today.  It is December for goodness sake and this is Michigan! Where is all the snow? We're quite close to a lake, no? Should we not be getting lake effect snow?  Maybe Michigan is always like this, though and I am simply forgetting years past.

My friend wants me to help him with his lab, but how can I help?  I suppose I could help him with the writing portion of the lab. I could give him moral support...put on a cheerleader uniform, complete with mini skirt and matching top and pom poms.  I would scream as loud as I could about doing the lab until their ears bled.  That doesn't sound like a good idea though.  This whole blog post isn't a good idea, not really, but I sort of like it like that.

Open Post

Lately I have been curious about the chemistry of scents. More specifically why do some scents suit men and some scents suit women?  And why do some of these scents turn us on (for lack of a better term) and some disgust us?  Is there something in the actual scented liquid that we are drawn to?  Google would probably be something I go to. I could type in something like, "the science of smells" and check out the first three websites that pop up. The second page can go screw itself, by than google has become hopeless.  Don't even mention the third page! The third page of google is like some weird wormhole and the only things that actually match your search is probably only a couple of letters.  Smell might pop up a couple of times on the second page, but it will have nothing to do with science. It would probably be about farts or something like that.  Farts and scents, they go hand in hand, yes?  I could also google the gendering of scents.  Axe is made for men, their scents are associated with men and women seem to like it (sometimes.)  Vanilla is a ladies scent, and men often enjoy the smell of it on a woman.  Someday I will write a lengthy and detailed research paper on this topic. 

In the Shadow of No Towers Respone

• What is the dominant impression you get from the comic? What do you make of the title of Spiegelman’s series of comics? What is going on in the frames and in the gutters?
• Discuss the images in the comic. What do you make of the various ways in which Spiegelman draws his character (human, cartoon human, mouse, etc.)? Why is he doing this? What effect does it have on his narrative?
• Examine the narrative through the text. What does the text do in this piece? What function does it serve?

It is hard to pinpoint the dominant impression I got from this comic.  It seemed almost cynical, and very dark.  Any humor in this piece was very dark as well.  I felt not exactly happy when reading this comic, instead I felt disturbed but fascinated.  I wanted to keep on reading because it was so incredibly fascinating, the art and the writing that is.  The title is descriptive of and relevant to what is going on in the comic, but not completely straight forward. 

There is a lot going on the frames.  There are many people panicking and racing about.  The style of art changes quite a bit as well.  Sometimes it looks very cartoony and, one could say, old school.  The mouse appears, to me, more human than even the human characters.  A personified mouse is of course the most unrealistic thing in this comic but he is still the most like a human being to me.  The actual human beings in this comic are drawn too cartoony to seem perfectly human.

The different styles of drawings in this comic create a certain effect.  They make the piece seem more hectic and out of control, and this is exactly how the people in the comic are feeling.  It is a reflection of what the characters and the environment of the comic are feeling and experiencing. 

The text in this comic is important, as it gives more insight into the feelings and the panic of the characters.  It also gives insight into the drama and the darkness of the event.  The mouse, for example, is comparing 9/11 to Auschwitz.  This is a powerful comparison, even coming from a mouse.  This comparing of 9/11 to Auschwitz gives a better idea of the tragedy that was 9/11 and the fear that came with it. 

Lewin's diary blog post.

These diaries occur in a stream of consciousness narrative because Lewin is writing down the events as he remembers them, and probably without pausing to think about what he is writing.  He wanted to put into words what he saw and that is it.  This style of writing makes it seem more genuine, less edited or censored.  It feels more like the reader is inside of Lewin’s head this way.  The purpose of this diary is to tell people of this piece of history.  This part of history was incredibly dark and impacted the entire world so it is important that we remember it.  This diary helps us remember it, and it also helps us to learn new things about it.  One could use this text as a historical document in order to tell a more detailed, and more personal view of history.  Instead of simply looking at statistics they can look at specific and detailed events.  The intended audience of this piece is everyone. Historians, victims of the holocaust, and simple every day people are the intended readers of this piece.  Everyone should know of the horrors of the holocaust and this is one way to show them just that.  Lewin’s distance in his writing offers a less biased view of the events.  Emotions become less intertwined with the facts.  By simply stating what happens it allows a reader feel their emotions without being affected by Lewin’s emotions.  I’m not sure there is such a thing as a typical diary, as a diary is something personal and thus something different for each person.  Often though we do see inner thoughts and feelings in a diary but not so much with Lewin’s, and this is something unique. 

Brain Storming

If I were a nurse in a concentration camp watching over the experiments of Dr. Mengele, or any of the cruel experiments, how would I be able to stomach it? I probably wouldn't.  It would be hard to sit back and watch a twin be cut in half and attached to another twin.  It would be even harder to provide the so called doctor with the scalpel to do so.  I wonder how the nurses were able to handle the concentration camps.  Were they nazi's or did fate just land them there?  Perhaps they were nurses at different hospitals before the holocaust. Once the holocaust began the nazi's wanted nurses and so they gathered the poor ladies and made them nazi nurses.  Nazi nurse is a strange term and I have a feeling that is not what they were called at all.  They were probably given more official, dignified titles.  Than again at that time, if you were a nazi, nazi was a dignified term.

I should count how many times I have written nazi and nurse in this post.  It is probably used so many times it has become annoying to any reader.  I am the writer of this post and I am already annoyed with my post and its lack of word variety.  Next post I shall work on this.

Open Post

I do not like being told what I can and cannot write about.  It frustrates me.  It frustrates my brain because it crushes my creative juices down into a few little bits of pulp.  Pulp that tastes sour and burns the tongue.  Writing turns from something fierce and raging into a boring job.  It becomes a formula that must be followed.  Build the base, fill in the blanks, repeat.  Where is the fun in that? I know where it is, it's back in that original idea I had.  The original idea that had no set formula, no set structure, no lame idea that was squeezed out of a tube like writing toothpaste.  It will turn out okay in the end but there will be little passion behind it.

On the other hand I suppose it makes me think in a new way, makes me think of something I wouldn't have thought of before.  Somewhere in the future I'm sure I will appreciate this but right now I simply feel intense writer angst. 

Nessi's dead.

Yeah, Nessi passed away. His daughter is alive, though.  People often mistake her for Nessi.  She doesn't mind, though, because it keeps the name of her father alive.  She doesn't actually have her own name, Nessi's daughter, because everyone thinks she's Nessi.  See, Nessi was named by superstitious Irish people and since they still think he's alive they haven't come up with a name for his daughter. This will probably never happen, though, the whole name game business.  If there is no way to prove that Nessi is alive, than how can they prove that he's dead? Now, you are probably wondering how I know Nessi's dead. I would tell you but I can't.  I'm kind of in cahoots with the MIH (Monsters in Hiding) and I have been sworn to secrecy.  The MIH was created to hide monsters such as bogarts (they commonly live under beds so they are confused as "Boogie Men"), mummy's that have come back to life, and even the occasional zombie experiment gone wrong. (Sadly, the zombies are often destroyed because of the danger of brains being eaten.) Back to my point, Nessi is dead, his daughter is alive, and I am a now not so secret member of the now not so secret MIH. Why publish this, you hypothetically ask? Because why not, that's why.