TOW #13 - The Case for 'Hamilton' as Album of the Year

Hamilton Poster

     I got an early Christmas present this weekend: tickets to see Hamilton! Actually, it was more an overly obvious hint but TICKETS TO SEE HAMILTON, a Broadway show that is sold-out for months in advance! So, in honor of this awesome surprise, I’ve decided to read an article about this show. In his article, The Case for Hamilton as Album of the Year, Spencer Kornhaber pulls quotes from songs and compares Lin Miranda, the lead and writer of Hamilton, to other artists in order to argue for Hamilton as the album of the year by rhetorically analyzing it.
     Like any good piece of rhetorical analysis, quotes are absolutely necessary. He writes, “it probably took a month alone to figure out the right phrase to rhyme with 'revolutionary manumission abolitionists.' ” By implementing quotes into his writing as shown, he allows the reader to make decisions for themselves and see first-hand how Miranda used certain techniques to create certain effects. In this way, he can show the reader the intricacies of Miranda’s writing and musical technique, proving Hamilton to be the best album of the year.
     Kornhaber also includes comparisons to other artists, including hip-hop artists like Kendrick Lamar and Drake. He writes, “You can find this Hamiltonian idea of hip-hop refracted through rap’s other great works this year. You hear it in the verbosity, the craft, the daringness, the desperate idealism, and the death-obsessed drive of Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. You hear Hamilton’s obsession with legacy, his unwillingness to back down when challenged, his profligacy—'why do you write as if you’re running out of time?'—in Drake’s multi-mixtape 2015 output.” In this way, Kornhaber proves the validity of rap as an expressive tool in musical theater, perhaps even more effective than just singing. This is seen in the song “Farmer Refuted,” in which “Hamilton tears Samuel Seabury’s words apart by literally speaking between them—basically, it’s Miranda proving the supremacy of rap as a form of expression.” Kornhaber argues that even though Miranda’s use of rap is unconventional, it’s wholly effective in musical theater.
     Kornhaber’s direct quotes from Miranda’s song and comparison of Miranda’s songs and other artist’s songs allows him to successfully rhetorically analyze Hamilton all while supporting his argument that Hamilton should be lauded as the album of the year. In this rather rare piece of rhetorical analysis in the “wild,” Kornhaber has made me even more excited to go see the show in New York!

TOW #12 - How to Listen to Great Music (IRB)

     How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart by Robert Greenberg has been a great read--and listen--so far! As I mentioned in my intro post, the book goes along with a lecture on Audible.com that I’m listening to with my dad because how can you learn how to listen to great music if you don’t hear any music? I started listening to the lecture way before I started reading the book, but I’m now ahead in the book because my dad and I don’t have a lot of time to listen to the lecture. Either way, it’s been interesting to hear how similar Greenberg’s speaking and writing styles are. In his book, Greenberg writes how he speaks and uses an extended joke about a gerbil in order to help the reader understand just enough music theory to appreciate the complexities of great music.
     As soon as Greenberg opens his mouth, or puts a pen to the page (or is it finger to the keyboard?), his style is obvious: expressive, passionate, flowery, casual, and again passionate. Obviously, Greenberg really likes, and knows, what he’s talking about. On page 1, he writes “Music is an intensification, a crystallization, a celebration, a glorification, of that movement and those vibrations. Pretty heady stuff.” One can almost hear the crescendo of his voice as the list of nouns goes on in the rather formal and flowery first sentence. Then in the next sentence, which is really just a fragment, he drops the formal tone in order to better relate to the audience. He then continues: “one need not speak Ashanti in order to groove to West African drumming; or German in order to be emotionally flayed by Beethoven; or English to totally freak when listening to Bruce Springsteen. Say it with flowers? Nah. If you really want to get your expressive point across, say it with music.” His diction in this section, using words like “totally freak” and “nah,” show his casual style, which in turn makes him more relatable and credible in the audience’s eyes as he’s just one of us. This relaxed style allows the audience to in turn relax around the author, making it easier to explain harder technical concepts to an audience that doesn’t know much about music.

     Greenberg’s gerbil jokes also add to his relatability while simultaneously explaining or exemplifying a difficult technical concept. On page 14 he writes, “Try it at home! Sing in the shower. Your unaccompanied voice is singing in a monophonic texture. Having left the shower, grab your wife or husband, partner, children, cat, or gerbil (okay, maybe not the cat), and sing the same thing together. Despite the fact that there is more than one voice singing, the voices are singing the same single, unaccompanied melody at the same time. It’s still monophony.” This is the first time the gerbil character appears in this book, and it keeps the book light and funny while explaining the rather boring and technical concept of monophonic music. The gerbil joke comes up again and again while explaining types of polyphony and homophony. This method of keeping the book interesting while teaching has time and time proved itself to be very effective.

Singing Gerbil - Yuval Y

     Overall, Greenberg’s How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to its History, Culture, and Heart is a great read--and listen!--as the author writes colloquially and makes education fun through jokes in order to teach a wide audience of people how to listen to great music in an easily understandable way. Not only is Greenberg’s prose and writing style fun and unique--something that I want to emulate using my own personality in my own writing--but his book has also exposed me to a lot of great and interesting music and is a must-read for anyone into history and/or music!

TOW #11 - Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

    In light of the coming election and the end of the Obama administration, I have decided to take a look back at his 2008 campaign. Besides, it has been way too long since I have analyzed satire. In “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” from the Onion, the author uses a humorous homonym and an obvious understatement in order to ridicule Americans that do not pay attention to politics by satirizing people’s view of Obama’s campaign.
     The most blatantly obvious and funniest strategy used to satirize is how the author takes advantage of the multiple meanings of the word “change.” An integral part of Obama’s campaign, here the word means “the act or instance of making or becoming different,” whereas in the Onion article the author uses the sense of the word that means “coins as opposed to paper currency.” The way the author takes advantage of this homonym allows him to make the article humorous and funny by making fun of the Americans that do not pay attention to politics and therefore do not understand Obama’s campaign.
     The author of “Black Guy Asks Nation For Change” also implements an understatement in order to mock those that do not pay attention to the news and politics. As seen in the title of the article, the author repeatedly calls Obama “the black guy” and “the black man.” This understatement exemplifies how out of the loop and blatantly ignorant some Americans are, since they do not even know who Obama is. By satirizing this ignorantness, the author achieves the effects of humor and therefore exposes the absurdity of those who do not know what is going on in the world.
     In “Black Guy Asks Nation for Change” from the Onion, the author of this article uses a funny homonym and a clear understatement in order to mock those who are out of the loop and do not pay attention to important things, like presidential elections, by satirizing the public’s reception of Obama’s 2008 campaign centered around “change.” This Onion article, an oldie but a goodie, has made this week’s TOW fun and educational! Nice one Onion, you did it again. :)

"The black guy is oddly comfortable demanding change from people he's never even met." - The Onion

TOW #10 - Paris’s Longest Night

     I’d like to apologize in advance for picking two TOW’s in a row on the same topic. I’ll try to justify it by saying that I’d like my TOW’s to reflect on what’s happening in the real world, and the ISIS attacks, especially the one on Paris, have been all over the news. This article from The New Yorker, written by Alexandra Schwartz, cleverly uses impactful imagery and quotes from people who actually were at the site of the attacks in order to show the reader what it really is like to be in France and French at this moment.
     It is immediately apparent that Schwartz is telling stories almost as soon as you start reading the article. Her imagery and descriptive language immerses the reader into the story, making him or her feel like he or she is really there. In her second paragraph, Schwartz describes Matthieu’s experience on that fateful night. “A car screeched to a stop a few feet from where Matthieu was sitting and a man jumped out, firing a Kalashnikov. For a moment, Matthieu thought he was watching a private settling of scores. Then the man fired a second burst; there was a tremendous shattering of windows and bottles. Matthieu leapt over the table and started running. At the top of the street, he stopped and listened. It was only then that he realized that a bullet had lodged in his left hand. His pinkie and ring fingers hung at a crooked angle.” Upon reading this, one can almost feel the surrealness of the situation and the adrenaline pumping through Matthieu’s veins, helping him ignore the pain and just keep moving. Fortunately uninjured enough to be mobile, Matthieu, and the reader in his shoes, watches the chaos around him as if he were just a spectator on the outside, not comprehending that this was actually happening. The ability of Schwartz to make the reader feel like he or she is in Matthieu’s place helps him or her to better understand how French people are feeling.
     Schwartz then quotes Matthieu directly. “‘I saw a lot of women dead on the ground,’ he said, his voice catching on the ‘f’ of ‘femmes.’ ‘It was mostly women that I saw’” (para. 5) This quotes, paired with a description of Matthieu’s delivery, further shows the fear and trauma that many victims and bystanders experienced. Schwartz also uses quotes to show another point of view: one of a Muslim in France who feels antagonized after the attacks. “‘Now [she is] désespéré’—despairing at the prospect of more terror.” Sonia Ferhani, the person who spoke this quote, grew up in the banlieues, the suburbs, but these suburbs are very different from American ones. “There is furious debate in France about the ways that the cultural separation of the banlieues may leave the young men who grow up there susceptible to recruitment by terrorist networks.” This other point of view, strengthened by quotes from people who know the isolation of the banlieues allows people from other countries to understand the existing tensions that existed with France before and leading up to the attacks, providing a better understanding of the social situation in France right now.
     Schwartz’s use of descriptive imagery and direct quotes immerse the reader in the terror that the French are feeling and expose the existing underlying tensions in France that will bubble over because of the attacks in order to create sympathy in the reader by showing him or her what it’s really like for the French people now. Even though it seems like France’s pre-existing factions will only become more divided, the ultimate outcome of the attacks is solidarity, which is just what we need.

TOW #9 - Peace for Paris

     Two TOW’s ago, I chose an article about rural France because I take French and am a bit of a francophile. In light of the attacks on Paris, I figured it was appropriate to pick a text relating to the recent events. This drawing, done immediately after hearing the news about the attacks and by Jean Jullien, alludes to famous symbols, is simplistic, and has rough brushstrokes. The artist incorporates all of these elements in order to gain sympathy for Paris and unite the people against terrorist attacks in a peaceful manner.
     Jullien’s most obvious rhetorical device is his allusions which cover the topic of the drawing and evoke sympathy in the reader. The artist combines a peace sign with the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of Paris, creating a relationship between them that is best summed up by the hashtag that the drawing inspired: #PeaceForParis. The use of the peace sign is very powerful, even more so than some of the speeches made by national leaders that talk about “acts of war.” The peace promoted by this drawing sharply contrasts the terrorism and violence that happened and the reactionary steps that countries are preparing to take. This appeals to the audience’s pathos because it shows that the people just want to live in peace and don’t need revenge, overall creating sympathy in the audience for the people of Paris.
     The drawing is also very obviously simplistic, with one object in the center, a plain background, and no color. This draws attention to the main focus by deleting all of the distractors, an approach which forces the viewer to recognize the artist’s point and focuses the viewer on the sentiment that Paris wants peace not war. This simplistic, single-mindedness unites the audience under one single cause: a peaceful fight against terrorism.
     The colorlessness that adds to the simplicity of the drawing also emphasizes the type of stroke that the artist uses: a thick, rough stroke that shows the audience the violence of the recent events along with the emotionally raw state the artist was in. The contrast between the peace sign and the violence communicated by the brushstroke creates sympathy in the audience similarly to how the notion of peace contrasts national leaders’ speeches. In addition, the artist’s emotional state is relayed to the audience, creating an emotional bond that again adds to the sympathy that the viewer has for Parisians.
     Jean Jullien’s allusions, simplistic style, and rough brushstrokes evokes sympathy in his audience and unites them against the terrorist attacks in a peaceful manner. As previously mentioned, this is even more effective than speeches that rally citizens against “acts of war” by reciprocating these acts. As proof, just go check Twitter. This drawing and the hashtag are everywhere.

#PeaceForParis - Jean Jullien

IRB Intro Post #2

This marking period, I’ve decided to read How to Listen to Great Music by Robert Greenberg. The title makes the content of the book pretty obvious. To spell it out, Greenberg teaches the reader how to appreciate classical, aka concert, music. This book is supplementary to a lecture that I’m listening to on Audible.com with my dad by the same author and with the same title. Since the book is on music, I would definitely be missing out if I just read the book and didn’t listen to the music that goes with it, which is why the lecture version is important. I’ve always been pretty into music, but I’m hoping to garner an appreciation for music that I usually don’t listen to.

TOW #8 - The Omnivore’s Dilemma (IRB)

     Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading my independent reading book: Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his book, the Pollan uses insightful and humorous metaphors and addresses a counterargument in order to revolutionize the reader’s understanding of the food industry and the way we eat.
     As mentioned in my previous post on this book, Pollan has a gift for using metaphors in order to explain complicated phenomena and processes to the general public. In his second section, the one on organic food, Pollan says that Whole Foods has one of the largest collection of “grocery lit” (137) as he gives examples of the colorful--and most likely not completely truthful--stories of free-range chickens and organic milk on the labels of many products. This metaphor compares the information on the labels, which is supposed to be just that, to stories and literature. The audience, while chuckling at the comparison, also gets a better understanding of Pollan’s experience in reading all of the labels at Whole Foods.
      In the third and final section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan takes a chapter to write about the ethics of eating meat. In doing so, he addresses a counterargument that many vegetarians are likely to bring up against his decision to go hunting for his final meal (for the book, not for the rest of his life). In order to do so, Pollan actually becomes a vegetarian himself for awhile, trying to better understand those on the other side of the argument. This gives him incredible ethos by the time he gets to proposing his solution: a middle ground in which animals destined to be eaten are treated well and slaughtered humanely. This chapter as a whole makes a very strong and convincing argument, appealing to logos in the solution and ethos in becoming a vegetarian. Therefore, addressing this counterargument makes it easier for the reader to buy into Pollan’s revolutionary revelations about the food industry.
     All in all, Pollan does a great job in answering his question from the introduction: “What should we eat?” (1) In order to help the reader better attack this complex question, Pollan uses funny and eye-opening metaphors and addresses a counterargument throughout all three of the main sections of his book. And, now that I know so much more about where my food comes from, it’ll be so much easier to figure out what to eat for dinner tonight.

TOW #7 - Village croissant

     I’m a little bit of a francophile, so when I saw an article entitled “Village croissant” while scrolling through the website for The Economist I immediately gravitated towards it. In order to inform a European audience on a change in the population trend of small villages, especially in France, the author of “Village croissant”, not credited by the website, cites statistics, uses vivid imagery, and implements a clever double entendre in the title.
     In order to appeal to logos and ethos, the author cites many statistics from many sources. These numbers obviously appeal to the reader’s logic, allowing him or her to believe the author’s initial claim that rural populations are growing. Some credibility is assumed because of the popularity and reliability of the magazine, but the rest comes from the sources of these statistics, of which the author uses two. The first source also has assumed credibility: various levels of French government. The author paraphrases promises and statements made by the mayor of Nâves, the rural village that this article is focused on, and the president of France. The second source adds a different kind of credibility, the kind that a witness has at court. The author quotes many citizens of Nâves, most notably a 97-year-old woman who grew up in the village. She’s seen it change through the years first-hand, leaving her more than qualified to speak of these changes. All of these statistics make the author’s argument more believable by adding to his credibility and providing a logical argument that makes sense.
     Along with the statistics, the same 97-year-old woman describes what it was like to live in Nâves in the 1950s, adding personal anecdotes that appeal to pathos. She speaks of the vibrancy and life that surrounded the village over 50 years ago and then adds, “now that’s all gone” (4). Up until recent inventions that allow one to be alone yet surrounded by friends (basically the Internet), the population in rural villages declined, but now that such things are possible people known as néoruraux, French for new rurals, start to flock back. The village starts to come alive again as it’s filled with “trampolines and little bicycles outside the new wooden chalets on the village edge, where younger families have settled” (4). This imagery, along with imagery used as a hook in the first paragraph, evokes a sense of romantic village life, appealing to the pathos of the audience.
     Unfortunately, I am not included in this intended audience. “Village croissant” was originally published in the European print edition. Intended for the English--it is a British paper after all--most of whom know at least some French, the title is more than just something confusing about a village and a French pastry. “Croissant” in French also means “increasing” in English, which makes perfect sense given the increasing population of rural villages. This and other French terms appeals specifically to the target audience, referencing things that some Americans would not understand without further research. The double entendre is clever, hooking the reader, and subtly reminds the reader of the romantic life in a small village. This keeps the reader’s attention and makes the audience feel good while reading.
     The author of “Village croissant” cites statistics from various sources, uses imagery in anecdotes, and utilizes a double entendre in order to write an interesting article on the increase of small villages’ populations, appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos along the way. However, although the author effectively achieves his purpose through his article, it was a bit torturous to read--all this talk of croissants is making me hungry! Time to go grab a snack!

Flake out - Alamy
NOMNOMNOMNOM SO YUMMY *tummy grumbles*

TOW #6 - The Strangers in Your Brain

What accounts for the extraordinary wiring of the human mind? - Rebekka Dunlap

     This week, I've decided to pick something different by reading a scientific article. The author, Kelly Clancy, only has one article on The New Yorker but has written many others, all published on her website (www.kellybclancy.com) and on the topic of the brain and its complexities. In this essay, she writes about a new discovery in the genome of neurons, cells that make up brains: each cell has a slightly different genome. In order to explain this discovery and convey the significance of it to a wider audience, Clancy uses personification and allusion throughout her essay.
     In her first paragraph, it is essential for her to clearly explain and define technical terms that she will need to use in order to explain the research later in the essay. She defines transposons as “wandering snippets of DNA that hide in genomes, copying and pasting themselves at random” and “unsung heroes of natural selection.” In science class, biology in particular, every teacher that I’ve had has compared the activities of the topic of discussion, whether it be atoms or organelles, to human activities because it helps people understand the function and/or reasoning behind each reaction and action. Clancy employs this technique in her careful placement of personification in order to help her reader, who most likely isn’t very well versed in biology, better understand the extremely technical subject of the essay.
     Also in her first paragraph but not limited to it, Clancy alludes to Darwin and Darwinian evolution. These references are understandable by everyone that’s ever been to school, since no one is able to escape the lessons about finches and the Galapagos islands that are typical of every biology class. In her first paragraph, Clancy writes “Without [mutations], there would be no novelty and no change; the slow-churning Darwinian search algorithm would stop.” Here, Clancy assumes that the reader knows Darwin’s theory of evolution, a correct assumption, and does not bother explaining it. Later on, Clancy compares the different types of beaks of Darwin’s finches to different types of neurons with different genomes. Again, she assumes the reader will automatically catch on and in doing so effectively explains the phenomenon through the comparison, aiding the reader’s understanding of an esoteric topic.
     Although Clancy’s use of personification and allusion help a very general audience with little understanding of higher biology or neurology understand the new discovery much more deeply than it would’ve through reading a scientific paper, this essays is also very interesting to those who do know a little about biology but are not so fully immersed into the scientific community, such as myself. Even after having taken AP Biology, I did not know what a transposon was. It was interesting to read something new that we hadn’t learned about in school and to read the little asides the Clancy had written in parenthesis that went into more detail and biology than the rest of the article. Overall, Clancy’s essay was effective in capturing the attention of the audience no matter what the background and explaining the content and importance of this scientific discovery.

TOW #5 - HONY

     Brandon Stanton, the man behind the popular blog called Humans of New York (HONY), began his blog as an amateur photographer. Although he’s still not technically a “professional”, his photography blog has become so popular that it is now his profession. On his blog, Brandon posts pictures of random people on the street with quotes that come from short interviews and conversations. For this particular picture, Brandon frames the picture in a way that showcases the subject’s handicap and chooses a short caption in order to create pathos in the viewer and remind people to always look on the bright side.

Humans of New York - posted July 1, 2014

     The first thing a person would see as they scrolled through their Facebook or Instagram feed is the subject’s missing arm. This immediately creates pathos in the viewer by blatantly making it clear that the man in handicapped and reminding him or her that, in most cases, no matter what other struggles he or she has had, he or she at least still has two arms. The bag held up behind the man’s head suggests that he is hardworking and doesn’t let his handicap get in the way of that. His face is partially hidden by his hat, and he doesn’t look like he’s posing particularly for the photo. This makes him seem humble, creating more pathos. Just by looking at the photo, before the viewer reads anything, the man in the picture has already make an impression on the viewer that he doesn’t let his handicap bother him.
     This idea is then further enforced as the reader glances at the short caption. Straight and to the point, like a six (eight, in this case) word story, the man affirms what the reader can infer just by looking at his portrait. “No struggles,” he says. Again, the viewer admires the man in the picture for being so strong and not letting his handicap or anything else bother him, reminding the viewer not to worry so much about the little things.

TOW #4 - The Omnivore’s Dilemma (IRB)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading my independent reading book: Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his book, the Pollan has a clear introduction and takes his audience’s point of view into consideration by using humor in order to further and almost revolutionize the reader’s understanding of the food industry and the way we eat. I saw an abundance of strong prose in the introduction and less so in body chapters because it gets much more technical as Pollan explains different aspects of the food we eat. Pollan starts his book with a question: “What should we eat?” (1). The rest of the book is basically a really involved answer to this question. Then, on pages 7-8 Pollan spends a paragraph on each of the sections of the book, explaining the purpose of each. This clear, explicit “road map” as it has been called by so many teachers may be viewed as primitive and basic, like those structured essays and thesis statements we’ve been taught to write since middle and elementary school, but in this case it benefits the reader. After all, the purpose of the book is to answer a simple question and to do so in an easily understood way so that it might make an impact on a very wide audience. Then Pollan moves on to the actual body of the book, and we, the readers, learn a whole lot about corn. Keeping his audience in mind is important in this section because Pollan spends quite some pages on the biology of corn. To those who aren’t scientifically inclined, C-4 plants and F-1 and F-2 generations have no meaning. Since I took AP Biology last year, I was familiar with all of these concepts, and it was interesting to observe how one might break it down for those unfamiliar with biology. I love the way Pollan explains the plant’s stomata dilemma: “Every time a stoma [plural stomata] opens to admit carbon dioxide previous molecules of water escape. It’s as though every time you opened your mouth to eat you lost a quantity of blood” (21). I’d never thought about it that way before, but I love how the comparison instantly makes sense. This is definitely something I will make note of because I often struggle with explaining concepts with which I am already familiar to people who have had no previous exposure. Pollan also makes other comparisons that might make one giggle, establishing ethos for him and keeping the reader interested. For example, he writes “So that’s us: processed corn, walking” (23). All in all, I had a great time reading Pollan’s book and have learned a lot, not only about corn but also about prose. I can’t wait to keep reading!

Big Bad Scary Corn - activistpost.com
Because it's Halloween month and corn is in everything (has taken over the world)

TOW #3 - The two Mexicos: and the lessons for development

The two Mexicos - The Economist

After telling my father about my weekly TOW’s, he immediately subscribed to The New Yorker and gave me his login information for The Economist, New York Times, and The New Yorker so that I could access these magazines online. Thanks Dad! This week, I’ve taken advantage of this. The image I’ve chosen, which isn’t credited to any artist, was printed as the cover of The Economist on September 19, 2015. The main article of this issue discusses development in Mexico, as the title of the image and the issue suggests. This image is a great example of juxtaposition; there is even a visible line down to middle to show the contrasting sides. On the top, the artist depicts developed Mexico as happy, rich with culture, and industrialized. The latter is shown by the car and city skyline, and the former two are shown by the happy face on the statue and the singing man. On the bottom, the artist depicts undeveloped Mexico as poor and violent. The latter is shown by the man with the gun, the crows, and the gravemarkers. The former is shown by the man on horseback, the rundown statue, and the subpar housing. Originally, I thought the undeveloped Mexico was under water because the sky was more blue. I thought this was interesting because it reminded me of the iceberg metaphor, in which the main message is that there’s a lot more to a person or a thing than people can see. In this situation, undeveloped Mexico would be the part that people usually don’t see, especially American tourists. Aside from all of this great comparison, this picture also leaves the viewer with some unanswered questions. The picture is not nearly detailed enough to replace the article, especially for someone without extensive foreknowledge of the subject. Therefore, a purpose of this picture, other than to show the differences in the two Mexicos, is to entice the reader into opening the magazine so that they might subscribe to it if they hadn’t already or so that they stay interested and continue their subscriptions.

TOW #2 - FEC Implements One-Year Break Between All Presidential Terms As Reprieve For Weary Nation

Satire for dummies - Jerm

It’s been too long since I’ve read some nice satire, and the Onion is the perfect place to slide back in. This article discusses a new one-year break between presidential terms implemented by the Federal Election Committee (FEC) in order to give citizens a break between the drama that surrounds a presidency. Of course, the nature of satire is to ridicule, in this case the US presidential elections, so it is not necessary for the report to be true. I could not find the author of this article, but the author and his or her credibility is not important in this situation because any informed reader would know that the information is inaccurate and heavily exaggerated to create a humorous effect. However, the author does create a sort of “ethos” by citing official organizations, like the FEC, and leaders of those organizations, like FEC chair Ann M. Ravel. As aforementioned, the reader of this article would have to be well informed on how the US government works as well as smart enough to understand that waiting a year between presidencies is completely out of the question because it would leave the world superpower without a leader. To further ridicule and make the article funnier, the author adds quotes from citizens reacting to the “change” made by the FEC. For example, alleged Columbus, OH resident Caroline Helling says, “Seeing all these TV and newspaper reports about whatever the current president just did or might do, hearing months and months of speculation about whether some guy’s gonna run or not—it will be the most amazing thing in the world to have a break from all that. I would love, absolutely love, to stop hearing a candidate’s sound bite on loop in the media, then hearing the other side overreacting and denouncing the sound bite, then seeing all the thinkpieces that come out about the overreaction, then having to go through the same shit all over again the next day.” This appeals to the author’s “ethos” by supporting his earlier statements and “logos” by providing a logical argument for keeping the breaks.

TOW #1 - Learning to Live

My grandmother handed me a magazine this weekend, asking me to please actually read it instead of just putting it away somewhere like I usually do. The magazine was a supplement to the World Journal (世界日报), a Chinese newspaper that all Chinese grandparents at Chinese school read frequently. This supplement, with essays both printed in Chinese and English, is targeted to Chinese-American families getting ready to send their children off to prestigious colleges. All of the essays include some sort of advice and make me feel bad as I read about “kids around my age who rose to face challenges usually more daunting than my own” and have already gone so far in life. Unfortunately, most of the essays are written fairly poorly as well, but that can be forgiven since some of the writers primarily speak Chinese. If I could read Chinese well, then I’m sure I’d love their essays.

A boy yawns while awaiting Hilary Clinton's arrival in Beijing last May - Reuters
...Or maybe he's already feeling the pressure of getting into a good college

Liren Ma, the author of Learning to Live and the child of a Chinese immigrant like me, has something different. On one hand, his prose is coherent and flows well, and it doesn’t seem tentative and unsure like that of other writers of the magazine. On the other hand, his advice isn’t to give back to your parents because of the huge sacrifice they made for you, because that would be giving up on yourself. Instead, one should “remember that everything they did was to give [you] the freedom to one day chase [your] own dreams.” He conveys this message by telling us his story, establishing ethos and pathos with the reader. The former he does by sharing experiences that are relatable to other children of Chinese immigrants. For example, he writes about the pressure he felt from the stories his grandparents would tell him about their childhoods or even other kids his age who are doing much better than him, stories which my grandparents frequently tell me too. He establishes pathos by evoking emotions from these stories. He describes the pressure of the stories, the stress of college applications, and the worry of not living a fulfilling life.

IRB Intro Post #1

The scene from Ratatouille

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals discusses the way we eat food and aims to change “the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.” During the summer between middle and high school, I read Pollan’s other book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, and I enjoyed it a lot. It gave eating a whole different meaning, like that scene from Ratatouille in which Remy teaches his brother Emile to really taste food.

Response to Gerald Early's "Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant"

Gerald Early’s “Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant” is not what I expected it to be. Instead of being about feminism like Rich’s “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” it’s about feminism and race pride. Two birds with one stone! A black man himself, Early definitely knows what he’s talking about when it comes to race pride, but it’s interesting to see his outside view of the black women beauty culture, especially through his young daughters. I especially liked the conclusion of the essay, in which Early learns the rules to playing dolls with his daughters. When he questions his daughters for making two black dolls have a white child they respond with, “We’re not racial. That’s old-fashioned.” Early then realizes that he is “much too old, much too at peace with stiffness and inflexibility, for children’s games.” I like how Early uses this as the end of the essay because it also connects to a bigger idea: that younger generations tend to be more liberal and open-minded than previous generations.

Amandla Stenberg in her video
"Don't Cash Crop My Cornrows"

This essay also reminded me of the work that Amandla Stenberg, a 16-year-old actress, is trying to do because their purposes are the same. Amandla often writes and posts about Black Culture, hoping to reach out to her fans and educate the rest of the world. She even made a video titled “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” to spread awareness. Early doesn’t achieve his purpose as well as Amandla does, but that is because he doesn’t have the same power to become viral like young Amandla does. However, his essay conveys his point very clearly, and Amandla would love it.

Response to Adrienne Rich's "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying"

Pay Equity and Discrimination - Chronogram

Adrienne Rich’s “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying” was originally read at the Hartwick Women Writers’ Workshop in 1975. Rich was a popular essayist, poet, and feminist of the time and was called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century” by the Oxford University Press and the Los Angeles Times. Her speech-turned-essay discusses the how’s and why’s of lying among women, “within the context of male lying, the lies of the powerful, the lie as a false source of power.” The feminism in this piece is very clear, as she writes about the power of the male and how women must lie for survival in the face of that power. Today, this sounds a bit extreme, but the farther back in time one goes, the more sense this statement makes. Historically, women have always been dependent on men, and while we are becoming more independent, men and women still aren’t treated as equals. For example, in 2013 women earned only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
Also, the prose of this speech-turned-essay is also noteworthy. As one reads, it is obvious that the piece is meant to be read aloud in the way that the words flow, almost like a poem. Rich writes, “In the struggle for survival we tell lies. To bosses, to prison guards, the police, men who have power over us, who legally own us and our children, lovers who need us as proof of their manhood.” The second sentence isn’t an independent clause, but the flow and beat of it works well with the rest of the essay. This is an example of an asyndeton and an enumeratio, both of which make the list seem longer. In addition Rich writes, “It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us,” each in its own line/paragraph. This anaphora helps show the components and highlight the importance of “it” (love).

Response to Richard Rodriguez's "Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood"

Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” follows a young Rodriguez as he transitions from Spanish to English as his primary language and learns that intimacy doesn’t depend on a language. Rodriguez controversially argues against bilingual education in this essay and against affirmative action elsewhere in the book that this essay was taken from, Hunger of Memory. He writes that bilingual voters’ ballots are “foolish and certainly doomed” because they “implie that a person can exercise the most public of rights-the right to vote-while still keeping apart…from public life.” Rodriguez points out many of these paradoxes about private and public life, but I disagree with his analysis. While he is certainly credible since he experienced everything himself, he has fallacies in his argument: teaching children in their family languages would keep them alienated from the public life. He writes that those who support bilingual education are idealistic in that they can’t better both the sense of self apart from the crowd and the sense of self within the crowd at the same time. What Rodriguez fails to mention are those who are truly bilingual and very fluent in both languages rather than heavily favoring one, like my parents. Because they are bilingual they can have thriving public lives while still maintaining their intimate private lives.

Bilingual Joke - Brainless Tales by Marcus

In addition, the first 30 or so paragraphs could be halved and still have the same effect or even a better effect since there would be less repetition. I enjoyed the essay much more when Rodriguez began to write about the transition in his life and how it affected him, especially when he was called “pocho” for forgetting his Spanish. Being bilingual and bad at my family language, this resonated with me. Rodriguez writes about how he and his grandmother were still intimate despite the lack of Spanish sounds that used to define intimacy for him, and I mostly agree since my relationship with my grandmother is similar to his. While the relationship is intimate, it could be even more so if I spoke better Chinese so that I could better communicate with her.