gennabek:

So this is the last post on tumblr and we are reaching an end to the class. I have to say that watching the road was an awesome way to end things and I really enjoyed the movie. I wish a few things in the movie would have followed more closely to the book but I enjoyed it non the less. Well, for a…

Although I’m still not as huge a fan of The Road as the majority of the class, I must say Ms. Clark never ceases to give us interesting and different things to read. I do agree that Ms. Clark is one of my favorite teachers and she’s the person who convinced me to take this course when I was in her ENC 1102 course last semester. I loved this class and enjoyed coming to it every day. All three of the books that we read, and the selections that we covered in the text book, were great. My favorite book has to have been A Visit from the Goon Squad, but all of the books had good qualities and interesting material that was definitely not traditional. All in all I loved this course and am very glad that I took it and that Ms. Clark was the teacher.

nguyen-ftw-:

In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, everything has ended. Earth has become a whole different planet. Everything is covered in ash, people are scarce, food and other life is even more scarce. People have even resorted to cannibalism. In the book the father and son walk continuously down a road heading…

I think that this is a very strong comparison of The Road and Silent Hill. The similarities are definitely there. I also very much agree that if we continue to waste the earth’s resources that we too will end up in a destroyed world that may not be repairable. In the book when there was talk about signs leading up to the disaster, I immediately thought of these past few years’ crazy weather issues. Tsunamis, grand scale earthquakes, some of the strongest hurricanes in history, noticeable climate changes, early blizzards, massive bouts of tornadoes in nontraditional tornado zones. I have to wonder, and worry a bit, if these are the types of signs that they meant? I hope not, but unfortunately only time will tell.

A Visit from the Goon Squad had a whole chapter that mentioned many Italian places including the ancient city of Pompeii. Pompeii was a thriving city in the south western portion of Italy that was completely destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Many people have heard a small bit about Pompeii, but what I found was interesting that not many people may know is that although the ruins of the original city of Pompeii still remain in their places, is that a reconstruction of the city has developed under the same name with a single ‘I’, Pompei. This reconstruction was founded by Bartolo Longo in 1891. The following images are of both cities with the original Pompeii on the top and the reconstruction Pompei on the bottom.

When we talked about the story of Orpheus and Eurdice that was meanted in A Visit from the Goon Squad, I was intrigued by the story. I’ve always loved to read about different mythologies. I took General Mythology in high school and was very intrigued by it. When this story was mentioned therefore, I looked up the full story and an image of work that represented the story. I found this image in a google search that currently resides in the Museo Nazionale in Naples. The relief was made out of marble in 420 BCE in Greece. This original was later copied by the Romans and measures 122 x 90 cm.

For the complete story of Orpheus and Eurydice, just click here (http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/eurydice/eurydicemyth.html) and it will take you to two different interpretations of it. 

Greatness

I hope everyone else remembers the paper due tomorrow!

While talking about A Visit from the Goon squad, we touched on the origin of Bennie Salazar’s surname. I of course saw this last name and laughed because I referenced it Salazar Slytherin from Harry Potter since that series pretty much defined my childhood as far as what held most of my interest. Anyway, I found the origin question interesting so I looked it up. After sifting through a ton of HP related articles I did find two small references to the origin of the last name that both told of how the name Salazar originated in Burgos, Castile, Spain. This intrigued me so I kept reading about it and apparently the name means old hall (from Castilian Sala (hall) and Basque zahar (old) and first appeared in the Middle Ages. The history of this name involves gypsies’ ancestries, a valley in Spain/Navarre containing the name, and a dictator of Portugal. There are currently 44 people listed as significant or well-known on a Wikipedia page defining the name’s origin, that sadly skips Mr. Slytherin but here’s the page if anyone wanted to read up on the name’s origin or the places that have been named from it.

(Click the title for the first page of history)
For the Wiki Page go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salazar_(surname).

kelleyscoast:

gtaylor2004:

amberen22:

Wow!!! This book looks awesome! If I am that into it just by watching the trailer of the movie, then I definatly cannot wait to read the book! I love these kinds of books though, they always keep the reader intreged. At this point I think any book would keep my attention better than our current book, A Visit from the Goon Squad! I really dislike this book. I cannot keep up with what is going on! I know I loose focus easily but this book, is just not my favorite! I am looking forward to The Road by McCarthy. This novel seems a little more my style of reading. I wonder if I am the only one in the class that did not care for A Visit from the Goon Squad? Did my fellow classmates have an opinion on the book? If so let’s hear it! I look forward to reading the next one! See ya’ll Monday!

I am very excited to read this book.  I did not really like A Visit from the Goon Squad so I am really looking forward to moving on.  Although I have already seen the movie, I am very interested to see how different the book is from it.  These kinds of stories or movies always make me wonder if the world will actually end like this.  Will the earth finally get tired of mankind polluting it and try to kill us all off to rebuild?  There are becoming more and more movies and book being made about the end of the world as it may happen.  For instance, the move The Day After Tomorrow is one perspective on the world coming to an end.  Or even the Happening, even though that movie is just disoriented and messed up, it is another take on the world reaching the end and trying to kill off mankind.

I’m also looking forward to reading The Road. I have seen the movie as well and it’s pretty disturbing I would say.  It would have been better to read the book first though because the book doesn’t seem as gross as the movie. The movie seems to follow the book really well which is pretty unusually for many movies to really follow the real story line which is nice to see. The Road is definitely a different take on how the world will end hopefully it will not happen that way because I would definitely hope not to survive it.

I’m of a different mind about A Visit from the Goon Squad. I loved the book and every book before it thus far. The way that Goon Squad presented its self over different spans of time and how it interlocked everyone’s stories was very entertaining and interesting to me. On the contrary, I’m not really all that excited about The Road. It just seems like another ‘let’s twist our minds even more and think of the world destroying everything and wiping out the human race’ thing. I’m just not into all of that. Hopefully the book will prove to be interesting all the same but as of right now, my expectations aren’t all that high.

Ok so in class Ms. Clark has mentioned a few times how people recognize certain smells and how some smells carry strong emotional ties within us. Honestly I’ve been very much interested in this since we first discussed in one of our first classes. I’ve tried to do some reading up on this but so far haven’t found much. I have though remembered some examples of this. The first being in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close when Oskar goes into his father’s closet because it still smells of him as a comfort thing, with another example being in A Visit From The Goon Squad with Mindy’s scent reminding Rolph of the lions on the safari. Two more examples of this can be found firstly in the Disney movie Anastasia when Ana meets her grandmother for the first time and she recounts how she (her grandmother) always smelt of peppermint oil because she wore it as perfume with a memory of Ana once spilling it on the carpet. Another movie example is in the contemporary version of The Parent Trap when Hallie (pretending to be Annie) gives the grandfather she’s never met a hug and smells his jacket to always remember him because he smells of pipe tobacco and peppermint. There are many scents that I attach to certain people such as my mother’s perfume, the soap that my father uses, and even the smell of menthol cigarettes that both of my parents used to smoke (even though they don’t anymore). So in close this theory intrigues me and I welcome any information that anyone can find about it.

kelleyscoast:

sherryhaz:

gtaylor2004:

So I was thinking of what to write about this week and I have not ever heard of a bathtub in a kitchen.  So I used google.com to find an image of it and came up with this picture.  It just looks so out of place in a kitchen.  Who would have, or even put a bathtub in your kitchen?  Maybe it is a symbol?  I am really not sure.  I think of it quite odd.  I would not feel comfortable taking a shower or bath in my kitchen, which could be the reason Sasha showers at the gym. 

I think that it would be extremely weird to have a bathtub in our kitchen. Absolutely no privacy. I can see why Sasha always took showers at the gym. In the picture that you posted it shows just the bathtub in the kitchen which is set apart from the rest of the house. I think that Sasha’s apartment was set up quite different. Since the guy that she brought home was sitting in the living room with her and he was able to see her bathtub in her kitchen i think that this means that her apartment was an open floor plan, which to me would be even worse. If i had this apartment i would probably take a shower at the gym too. If you have company at you house staying the night, neither you nor your guests would have any privacy. It would still be cool to see though. 

This is extremely creepy, having a bathtub in your kitchen just doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem very sanitary to have it in your kitchen plus there’s no privacy that would be a big problem. The open floor plan is a big pain though my house now is that way and very annoying it looks good to the eye and good for entertaining but not very efficient to live in but to put on the record I don’t have a bathtub in my kitchen. But I never thought of how company would feel to stay at Sasha apartment and have to shower there it would be very uncomfortable.  No wonder she took showers at the gym but that is kind of odd in its self to have to bathe at the gym and inconvenient but it would make you go the gym to work out so maybe there’s a plus.

While I do agree that it’s strange to have a bathtub in your kitchen, I find it actually very amusing a concept. I haven’t done research to back up this theory but I like to think that the bathtub was put into the kitchen to make up for limited space. The kitchen, especially in open floor plan apartments, are generally the second largest room in comparison to the living/dining (and sometimes bedroom) rooms so the bathtub could have been away to give someone the comfort of actually having a bath, instead of just a shower, even with the awkwardness of its location. (Also I agree with Kelleyscoast that it would be a motivator to go to the gym every day. ^_^)