Painting Write Now

This painting is different from the others we have seen before because of its color mainly. It contains pink, bright red, and a joyful ambiance. The bright blue and green contrast with the warm colors and make it look sparkly, and highlighting.
Aside from the cheerful color, it includes a comic character which is not defined as anything common in real life. It is strange but jolly.
This could be meta fiction since the creature who is the artist in the painting is painting itself in another canvas inside, and we are admiring this pattern of painters.

The Luck of Being Born

In my reading of Leaves of Grass I found a very significant quote that made me think "Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it." This is an extremely significant question to ask to oneself, to the universe. it has crossed my mind now for over 100 times in my life the reason for my existence in this earth. Is it luck? Was it chance? The possibilities of me not standing here, breathing, writing, living are extremely big. I could not be alive. With this I must disagree with Whitman, for it is pure luck to be born. So many misfortunes that could happen, there is just a small chance of being born the way you are. The number of people versus the chances of our parents getting together, and that magically you are slapped together into what you see today in the mirror. He made me question the possibility of fate. If my chances of existing are so slim then there must be purposed behind my existance. He is probably trying to give that idea that everything is controlled by fate, we are born and we die because it is inevitable. Although the fact we are here is very likely just luck I do understand why Whitman says this. The alternatives are so great and the possibility of things existing the way they do is so small that believing in fate is a logical choice. We have to trust the ways of the universe, or else we don't have a choice of existing.

Celebrating The World

"I Celebrate myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me,
as good belongs to you."

When Whitman creates this poem he is exploiting the fact of believing the world as a whole. Us being part of one whole magnum force be it G-d , or some specific part of the universe. We could be part of a whole, why not? This can be considered for the reason of actually wanting to be part of a community. For fright of being left alone, away from the pack.
But what Whitman could possibly mean with this, is that like he celebrates himself, everybody can do that too, to themselves and to him.
His theory of being part of a whole includes an almost Socialist thinking believing that since we are all part of the same matter, meaning that we are all made up from the same energy therefore we must all own each others atoms, brains, and neurons being able to think the same way.
He shares himself, and he shares it with his poems, that are rejected in the moment they are published. His atoms are denied.

The End of Felicite

As I continued to read through A Simple Soul I came across a quote that I really liked.This quote happens when It alks about"The grass exhaled an odour of summer; flies buzzed in the air, the sun shone on the river and warmed the slated roof. Old Mother Simon had returned to Felicite and was peacefully falling asleep"(Chapter 5, paragraph 1). This happens just before Felicite dies. The meaning of this quote is that even thought she is dying and her life has been utterly wasted, the birds still sing. This can also be seen in Slaughter House Five with Po-tee-weet meaning that even though the war happened and that people died, the birds still sing. the world keeps on moving. It can also be seen in many Holocaust books like Night and Cage. After they exited the camps, the birds kept on singing. And when they were in the camps, the day was sunny and beautiful. It was always an amazing day when they were slaughtered in the concentration camps. And so on. This happened as well to Felicite. She was forgotten, while the children sang outside under the beautiful sunny day. The World goes on.

The Only Savior Is Lost

For a soul in despair the only thing that can save it is another soul. By the time Felicite was young, she fell in love. Her life had been miserable from her birth and on, but he was still young and did not expect that she was going to be bleak until the day of her death. At this point it was probable that she could have expected more in life. and so after falling in love her fate could have been much different. Maybe a family, a good house. This could have been the only point in which in the novel, the plot could have been different. But obviously, it is at the mercy and hands of Mr. Flaubert, and it wouldn't be a Simple Heart if she had lived happily ever after in a beautiful house in the country. When her love was lost,the story's main theme got into track giving the reader and Felicite no hope until the last page has been turned. As she lost him, her heart closed up to any other lovable prospect: "When the time grew near, she ran to meet her lover. But instead of Theodore, one of his friends was at the meeting-place. He informed her that she would never see her sweetheart again; for, in order to escape the conscription, he had married a rich old woman, Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques"(Chapter 2, Page 2, Paragraph 3).

Theodore had also betrayed his heart for he had given it away to a false love, in order to escape the hardships of life, that his preceding counterpart would suffer all of her life. He has wasted his opportunity to love, he is placing love and money in the very common balance. The money won, and Felicite lost her chance to be saved from her misery, but as we well know this could have never happened.

The Genesis Of Felicite

After the first chapter, the reader is bewildered. It is expected for the novel to be torment full, but maybe one does not consider the reasons or meaning of the misery that is seen. to begin with the sole name of "Felicite". This means extreme happiness, almost euphoria. This is the way in which Flaubert mocks his own character by giving her a name that does not match the way in which this character is going to survive and live inside the novel. This way maybe foreshadowing for a brief moment the irony that can be found in the novel, and the way a woman suffers from the day she was born, and only achieves happiness the day of her death.:"Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart"(Chapter 2, Paragraph 1). This is referring to the rough childhood and rupture in her family when she was young. But as Flaubert refers to it, as an episode every other woman has, he is burring Felicite even more into the ground. He is treating her as a normal being, when she is not. She is the heart an humble but harsh example of a miserable life in the 19th century in Europe were the height of snobbery existed, and in the deepest sewer, people with lives like Felicite. And so, as Flaubert tries to compare the troubles of Felicite to any other woman's troubles he is taking her importance away to make her even more gloomy, even to the book itself.
He could also mean that women suffer too much, but that would be drifting of the main point of the novel, with no sense in the deep meaning of it. The more sensitive and according interpretation could be the fact that after she has been doomed all of her life, her heart exists and is obviously the objective of the novel, the way in which her simple heart is able to appreciate things, even if at the end of er life, and simplicity to the point of having an exotic view of what she though was heaven. Her heart made her feel more than a simple soul would have, and this is why Felicite lived the way she did, to proof the simplicity, but honesty of a person's true heart and soul.

Vesta's Clock and Madame Aubain

It is quite interesting the simplicity of the way in which Flaubert's style shifts from a rich and envied woman, to a woman who is poor now, and lives in a rather run down house. In the wall, a clock is hanging. But not any clock. It is a clock resembling the temple of Vesta, the goddess of home, hearth, and household. but in the scene that is depicted here, the idea of "vestal" is contrary to what is being described. "On either side of the yellow marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as it was on a lower level than the garden(chapter one)".
Madame Aubin now lives in a different way she lived before. Her house is no temple of Vesta. On the contrary, she is deprived of all she had before. The novel is not centered only in Felicite, as many other readers have interpreted. The novel does emphasize in her life, but it also shows how in others life is seen, and actually lived. but in the first sentences, Madame Aubin is perfectly described. once wealthy, but now she is lost maybe with the absence of her husband, or with the fact of having no more ambition in life. She worked, and slept. She aged quickly. "It communicated with a smaller room, in which there were two little cribs, without any mattresses"(chapter one). This is almost conspicuous since after a life of sorrow, a woman expects not to have any children. She is left with that emotional emptiness of a a heart full of love never used, and her arms empty for ever. The cribs are her desire, but there is no mattress that can hold a child. In the first pages, the book contains misery already.

Gustav Flaubert. Simple Soul

I am using a different copy of A Simple Soul.
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Gustave_Flaubert/A_Simple_Soul/Chapter_I_p1.html

Gustav Flaubert. Simple Soul

I am using a different copy of A Simple Soul.
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Gustave_Flaubert/A_Simple_Soul/Chapter_I_p1.html

Pynchon, The Mocking Preacher (Chp 4,5,6)

After advancing in the lines of ink and paper, the mockery and jeering in Pynchon's voice, ideas and names is more and more highlighting than any of the surrounding subjects and themes in the adjacent text. The first thing that is noticed is the rock band named the "Volkswagens". This is making an allusion towards the heat of the moment in the sixties, the famous "Beatles", since a Beetle is a car made by Volkswagen. The law firm that Metzger works at. Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitscheck, McMingus. Obviously this is mocking the law firms that have three or four names and are very prestigious and expensive, often including foreign names. All of these last names are invented and Warpe comes from Warp which ironically means to distort or misshape and being a lawyers name is pretty self explanatory.

"It might be something sexual but she somehow doubted it" (38). This is one of my favorites, since after seeing the sign in the bathroom wall among "other obscenities", she doesn't consider an advertisement something sexual, either the symbol. The advertisement is obviously sexual, and has some illegal or incorrect connotation since you could only answer through W.A.S.T.E.

Names and places take over the irony and give the novel more meaning to what Pynchon wants to show.

Dead is the new unambiguous. Bipolar is the new undecided. Heavily armed is the new born again. Bald is the new head... and the new crotch. Hairy is the new face. Sheepishly admitting to having an STD is the new flirting. Purell is the new face of fear. Finding the time that's right for you is the new impotence. The smiley-face emoticon is the new "sincerely yours." Smoking is the new outdoorsy lifestyle. Looking forward to insanely expensive private schooling, thousand dollar a week nannies and soccer is the new yuppie birth control. Misinformed is the new patriotic. Veganism is the new "tastes like chicken." Serotonin uptake inhibiting is the new crowd control. Texting is the new talking. Talking is the new singing. Singing is the new hubris. Gay marriage is the new "be careful what you wish for." And finally, and only because I really need this to catch on, fifty-seven years old is the new forty-five.

Chuck Lorre Productions #260

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (TCOL49 Chp 1-3)

The first chapters of this eccentric novel already introduce the essence of it. It discusses subjects that are not normal, subjects that can make you feel uncomfortable, but as Pynchon posses them, they are able to mock the life out of any possible serious subject. It is a society of weirdness, eerie out of any thing common. But the nucleus of the novel is how the weirdness is fused with in what is natural for a character in the novel. A glimpse of it comes, with a call from the doctor (usually the other way around): "She finally, having nothing she knew of to lose, had taken it. It was Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist... he was helping the community hospital run on effects of LSD-25" (Pynchon 7-8).

From this quotation so much can be extracted. To begin with, Oedipa not knowing what she has to lose. No sense of health or life is present. Though, she has not taken the pills for fear but it is unclear what kind of fear, either for life or for what.

Then, the actual spelling for "Dr. Hilarius", also makes fun of the actual word, and of him having it and being a doctor. It can get to be "hilarious". He offers the hospital LSD, a common narcotic that makes you hallucinate out of reality, bringing you to a better place thanks to the "trips" this acid provides. This is like the story within a story. Rather than the unreal life of the characters is tried to be replaced to a wacky life with LSD, but their life is already weird.

Oedipa has trouble with relationships, furthermore with commitments, because she indecisive with her partners, Roseman, Mucho, and Pierce.

This is only the beginning.

King Of Show, Son Full Of Pride

A similarity is found when comparing The Selfish Gene to Macbeth, because regarding genes, they are built to compete, and to remain in the gene pool, and animals compete for the throne, as Macbeth competes for the throne too. Its the same game played over and over again. Who can rule over their own species.

Join or Die: The Ultimate Choice Within Dawkins View

I this chapter Dawkins (actually W.D Hamilton...) mentions the first or second interesting points in the book. The fact of living in a compound, in group, in society is the key and the base for human life, and at last this applies for both animals (that he bases every example on) and on humans. "You scratch my back I'll ride on yours"(166). This may very well be the essence of our civilization, because without somebody riding on our back or scratching it we wouldn't have a society, and this way we would have no way of living as single units. We are a team. We rely on each other. Society was never meant to exist-or for that matter not even flourish. We might not know it, but since birth, since the animal is conceived it is bound to co-exist with other beings, with the world. Life is not possible without the significant other, without the other 23 chromosomes (as Dawkins would like to see it put). Yes, he is correct with everything he poses, but a flaw exists on his book. A very important one, one that means the difference between understanding what the book says, and what actually is going on outside of the ink and paper. Dawkins talks about the genes, yes, but he never mentions current or actual situation of this evolving mad machine. He does not see, he omits the fact that humans actually have a social part in their lives, that is influenced obviously by what he does explain in the book. The current social condition, has interfered with the original theorem of evolution. We are forgetting we need help from other individuals, and we are isolating ourselves mentally and socially in a cocoon of doom. Our evolution, the perfect Dawkins evolution has begun its ultimate stage: retro-evolution, the fact of being so developed, that what he have built, will end up destroying us.But this is a totally separate matter that will one day be recorded by the successful beings that survive and explore the unsuccessful gene that we evolved into, into the selfish gene, the gene in its own doom cocoon.

Does My Mommy Love My Sister More Than Me?

As Dawkins advances his "genealogical" word-army towards us, we start to find the text somewhat interesting after tedious chapters. He mentions something uncomfortable, something that I am sure of, everybody has thought about one time or another. The uneasy matter of a mother loving your bratty, snotty little sister more than she loves you: "Should a mother have favourites, or should she be equally altruistic towards all her children?"(80).

After omitting the fact that Dawkins is messing with our stability in our family and leaving us to think that maybe while I'm reading his book, my mom is actually spending quality time with my sister (which is actually true, and on my birthday).

If you tried to ask your mother who does she love the most her answer will always be the same: "I love all of my beautiful kids equally". The major way of finding out, is by starting to feel that monster inside you eating up your heart. This is most commonly known as jealousy.

The examples he gives, are actually non-helpful since through out the book, Dawkins uses examples that do not apply to the modern day human. My mom does not love me less than my sister because she drinks more milk, than I do, or that I'm killing my sister y drinking more milk from my mother!

But, yes, I get the point of P.I. Time is love in this matter. But I still think that Dawkins' theory is old, and does not quite apply nowadays. The original question contained the word "should", so my answer would be no. Except under an extreme case of life and death, and the second child has no possibility of living, or striving, then yes, time is better spent with the first healthy child.

In a human society preference would never be accepted, and in the conditions most people live, this scenario is not possible, and rather odd. Human mothers should be equally altruistic towards all of their children. That is the most reasonable situation.

The Proliferous Society: Finally Daddy Takes Over!

Genes, Humans, Universe.

What Dawkins poses in these brief pages of his book, is that as a gene if it is altruist, it has no chance to survive. As well as a human if it not strong enough to survive this generation it will definitely not pass on to the next. This applies for almost everything in life, and the world, since we tend to evolve, generally to be better or to die trying. And things evolve with us, like an airplane, even though we cant fly, we will not develop wings, but will develop an aircraft, and that is our evolution.

When he mentions a civilization becomes intelligent when it questions its own existence, he is automatically triggering our minds to actually think about this. He truly poses the major problems and precedents a human has in order to evolve. For example: "If we were told that a man had lived a long and prosperous life in the world of Chicago gangsters" (Dawkins 2). Dawkins poses the question of an environment. This obviously tells us that we either evolve in order to live in the environment, or the environment is adapted to us.

What is also admirable is that you could say that Dawkins compares the genes or cells with us: "Even in the group of altruists, there will almost certainly be a dissenting minority who refuse to make any sacrifice. If there is just one selfish rebel, prepared to exploit the altruism of the rest." There are people like this in any type of society, being a human body system, or a human society. There will always exists the keen of the rebells, of the ones who want to go against the flow, and rise up in arms to counter talk to the flow. And with one rebel, a rebellion may rise, bringing the fall of society, and its pillars. All for one.

Voltaire's Last Thrust: Panglossian Contradiction, Evil Exists!

After the old woman's story, Voltaire reveals what could be the real meaning of Candide and what it symbolizes. With the old woman's story, we see that evil and wrong doing exist. It completely disproves Pangloss and Candide since even if one was completely optimistic, what happened to the old woman cannot by any means or any "all is for the good", kind of mentality.

At this point we can say that the old woman is the alter ego of Pangloss and all of his theory. And recalling the novel: "I have never forgotten that I am the daughter of a Pope" (Candide p. 57).

She was the daughter of a Pope, a man of religion. the old woman was raped, sold, and abused. This is ironical, since all of these things her father prayed for not to happen and "helped" to confront, and it happened to his own daughter. Even as the old woman has no hope, and is the opposite of Pangloss, she at least is acquainted of what is going on. She is what a person should expect to be, not a blind optimist, unaware of the dangers and truths in life. This is the same type of turn Vonnegut makes in Slaughterhouse five when he mentions himself in the novel, beside Billy.

With this Voltaire, gives the final flourish in the "statement" he manages to make. He finally does what we had awaited.

He ends the novel by transforming Cunegonde into a horrible woman, and Optimism appears again: Pangloss. This is a symbol of life being fair after all, Candide's friends being free now, and everyone ending "happy".

The Powerless Powerful (Candide Chp. 12-18)

As the old woman tells her story, it is quite unusual what happens to her, and the coincidence of finding a servant to her mother, that is now basically her owner. A complete view of satire in the novel. Besides, her owner is a man with no testicles. The testes symbolize manhood and proficiency. The man that exerts pressure and horror into the lady's liberty is a man with no power, no virility. This is ironic.

When she is held captive by the Russians, and they run out of food, it is suggested that they eat the women's buttocks for food: "Cut just one buttock off each of these ladies," he said, "and that will provide you with a delicius meal"(Candide p.56). This is completely absurd. One would not slice off a woman's buttock off to eat it. It is a ridiculous story.

After a while of telling her story, she ends it with a terrible but rather truthful idea: "I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most melancholy propensities" (Candide p.57).

She poses a real life dilemma, if life is so hard to live with all its perils, why do we still love it, even if it harms us?

Candide can be a satire, but for sure the goal of Voltaire was not to entertain people with books, but rather pose life, in other fictional characters stories, that could be reflected in our own, and in the present day.

Pangloss Philosophy (Candide Chp. 6-11)

The Novel has mischievous satire, seen in almost every chapter. In my first blogs about Candide, I questioned the reason for them being brief, and events happening in a quick and sort of a non-important tone. This is all part of the humor, the consistence that Voltaire wants it to have. It is the fact that this gentleman , who is an optimists under goes much suffering, whiping, and grief in such a short period of time, and in such a ravishing way.

It is the meaning and point in the novel. Absurdity within severity. But what is most absurd and satirical in the early chapters is the existence and meaning of Pangloss. "Pangloss" means extremely, blindly optimistic. Evidence of a man living in misery, but still hoping to strive upon life. Candide, has always referred to him as a much intelligent man, and highly educated. he can rely on him with every trouble that ponders Candide: "If Pangloss had not been hanged, " said Candide, "he would have given us great advice in this emergency, for he was a greta philosopher. Failing him, lets consult the old woman" (Candide p.45).

This just shows us that Pangloss could have been any man, as the woman was any woman, but that Candide needs in order to make any choice. He is extremely insecure, and needs heeding along every step of the way. He needs a mental cane. Pangloss is dead, so oh well, let us find the nearest person around who can help me make any kind of choice.

A Bold Destiny (Candide Chapters 1-5)

What most highlights in the novel is the way in which it is told. It is an uncommon way to narrate a novel since everything that is important, or at least important changes, are told in a brief way as if to not give them importance. It can be inferred that the material and physical life of Candide is not what eventually matters, but his actually mind an senesces towards the world and situations. He describes events as passing by, and fortunes of time: "After being turned out this earthly paradise, Candide wandered off without thinking which way he was going" (Candide 22). As it is axiomatical, Candide has just past from living in "the most beautiful and delightful of all possible mansions" to wandering off into the streets of uncertainty. It is a small sentence making a big change.

Amazingly enough, in Candide, free will and liberty are mentioned prematurely in the first pages of the novel. This is obviously because, Voltaire was most famously known as an Enlightenment writer, in which he expresses the indispensable needs of civil liberties.

So reflecting this in Candide, he evidently shows the opposite of free will when Candide is charged in the Bulgars court because of running away: " It was useless to declare his belief in

Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice. So, exercising that divine gift called Liberty he decided to run the gauntlet thirty-six times"(Candide 24).

Voltaire expresses with this that their is no actual Liberty, at least not in the world he lived in.

Ultimately, as I expected to find, this novel contains somewhat of a satire tone, since it employs irony in a serious manner, after Candide finds Pangloss, and tells him about the destruction of the mansion: "As for the house, not one stone was left standing on another; not a barn was left, not a sheep, not a duck, not a tree" (Candide 28).

Irony is seen as the mansion is remembered as a beautiful place, and the reader looses hope as Candide is kicked out of it, but this actually saves his life. So he is saved by a bad scene, and also as the beautiful home is destroyed, with its integrants, brick by brick.

What We Materially Take For Granted (Epitectus Sec 25-30)

We often omit the simple, but valuable things in the courseof life. We omit them because we think of them as insignificant and as non-important. One of the most common misconceptions is when a person is not invited to a "banquet", as Eptectus refers to it: "Indeed you have something: you did not praise some one you did not wish to praise, and you did not have to put up with the people around his door" (Epitectus Sec 25). So as he wisely refers to this, is that we often do not see, that we win or loose something in life. If you are not invited to a banquet, you do not loose at all, since your attention is not diverted from yourself towards the obnoxious host. You save your attention, it is not wasted. Anyways you are prived of the banquet, but the ones who attended it, had to pay a price, that you still conserve. 

In a higher state, obviously regarding people, humans we tend to do the same thing. When we brag about being fair to the neighbor, and understanding the neighbor it is actually facetious, because we really do not feel any pain or true grief, because it has not happened to myself, it is only the neighbor: "Someone else's child is dead, or his wife. There is no one would not say, "It's the lot of a human being." But when one's own dies, immediately it is, "Alas! Poor me!" (Epitectus Sec 26). Unfortunately, this is true, we will never feelanother person's torment, for it does not lie in our mind, in our hearts, in our souls.

The Face Of Reality: A Time Traveling Letter, An Idea

To my friend Robert Frost:

Dearest comrade, I should question your acts of free will, no further since you have taken the correct path. You understand how the will in a human being works, and you comprehend the path that roots in life. You have explored the boundaries that the human mind undertakes under a lifetime's pressure to take the correct will or path in life, assuring that there is actually no free will. We can't stray from the path. We can choose different and dark ones, but it will always be on a path be it rocky or smooth. 

Robert, your poem "The Road not Taken" explores these possibilities to their maximum. You have achieved understanding of my text, my handbook. 

Farewell good friend, and keep on writing the way you do.

Truly yours,

Epitectus A.D 55.  

Let The Horror Become The Common (Epitectus sections 21-26)

As Epitectus goes on enlightening us with his knowledge about how virtues in a man can change and as well his points of view. Everything can be seen with different eyes. so focusing on this, Epitectus mentions: "Let death and exile and everything that is terrible appear before your eyes every day, especially death; and you will never have anything contemptible in your thought or crave anything excessively" (Epitectus Sec. 21).

Not many people realize how true and significant this is in a human's life. It would completely change the way people viewed death, hence changing the morbidness and darkness about dying. It is actually a simple excercise more of the mind and conciusness than of anything stronger such as the soul or anything resembling it or any divine power.

You just have to understand, and picture life without that person, or object. It works, by making death or actually anything that upsets you into something daily and common, like taking a shower. We don't get scared every morning of getting our skin wet, because we do it every day, and we know that our skin and hair can be dried up.

This is the same. Death can also be dried up. Maybe not with a towel, but something poetically resembeling it. If you entertain any thought for a correct amount of time, the craving of it becomes a routine, hence not wanting it and desiring it as you prevoiusly did. It is just a routinary mind game, that only does the simple task, to help you get over death.

Indiosyncratic Judgement (Epictetus Handbook sections 1-20)

What Epictetus makes reference is actually true. "What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about the things" (Epitectus). I would like to open with this, and specially about death. It is often that we see death as a bad thing. In this, Epitectus has a point. we don't know what happens after death, ther is no reason for us to refer to death as a dangerous and frightful word. Maybe after we die, there is some kind of Paradise, and all the way long, we have been daring to die. We tend to view everyhting that we think "bad" will always harm us. 

Epitectus alludes mainly to this: "Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgement about them that they are insulting. So when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your own belief (Epitectus). 

What does he really mean by this? Is it really true that what they say is not really what hurts, but rather the attitude,the tone, and the voice? It is is your own belief on irritation, because what is actually irritating you, is the fact that that person is yelling at your face, or punching you for any kind of reason. So it means that our brain is actually telling us: "Hey, this guy is abusing me", and so this is the reason it bothers you. 

It is the simple fact that they are actually abusing or hurting no matter what. 

"Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it short. If he wants you to play a beggar, play even this part skillfully" (Epitectus). 

So what this means is that even if you are asinged by God-or destiny any job, you might as well do this right. Any job, be it simple, or humble must be done correctly, with the best efforts in mind. Mediocracy is not accepted. You are asigned a street sweeper, and there  is nothing you can do about it. You might just sweep the street the best you can do it, so at the end of the day, you feel satisfied that you did a good job, even when you are just a street sweeper. It is amazing! To feel satisfaction even by doing a cheap job. Yes, it is possible. You don't have to be the president to be satisfied, you just have to be yourself. 

In the end, life is how you judge it, and how you interpret it. It's a book full of messages. You can interpret anyway you please, and anyway you feel is what you want to percieve. 

The Final Doubt (SHV chps 9-10)

This is the ultimate showdown in Billy's personality and charisma. It is again an example of impressions and being alive. When he is in the hospital in Vermont, people think-and say he is dead. But he is far from this, he is actually aranging his tactic to reveal to the world his experience with the aliens. It is strange how like in this and many other situations, you get to see and hear what other people think about you and have the time to appreciate you in the current condition you are. He was dead physically. They saw him as a deaad man, but what always has mattered in Billy Pilgrim is his mind. His fabulous mind. "Actually, Billy's outward listessness was a screen. The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly. It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers, the neglibility of death, and the true nature of time... Professor Rumford said frightful things about Billy within Billy's hearing, confident that Billy no longer had any brain at all."(SHV pg 190)

Now this, through me off completely: "The name of the book was The big Board. He got a few paragraphs int it, and then he realized that he had read it before-years ago in the veteran's hospital. It was about an Earthling man and a woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zirconia 212."(SHV pg 201)

Okey, first of all Vonnegut doesn't explain this passage at all. He introduces it, and then he does his classical "And so on"(not literally). He is divulging his mystery of Billy's story. Why does he do this to the reader? Are we supposed to know why or how this is? It is so sudden that it strikes us, and we have no protection against this at all. something else is the name of the planet: "Zirconia". This means diamond. Is tis some time of message inferring to the german diamond? Vonnegut creates this "enygma" on porpuse to leave us clu less, and wanting more as always. 

And to compensate my previous entry on irony: 

"Two Roman soldiers came into the shop with a mechanical drawing on papyrus of a device they wanted build by sunrise the next morning. It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rablle-rouser. Jesus and his father built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it. So it goes."(SHV pg 202) 

This is extremely ironic, for Jesus, as we all know dies in the cross, and he is commanded to craft one himself. It is some how like digging your own grave. It is "over ironical" and some how Vonnegut has to mean something deper than just Jesus and a time machine. I am hungry to find the deeper meaning. 

Robotic Crusade (SHV Chp 8)

In this chapter, my favorite passage was: "...use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings. It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground."(SHV pg 168). 

I like it, since Vonnegut's inference with this allegory of war and how people gradually become robots, war machines. As a robot, we lose our hearts, and we transform our way of live, centering it in killing and destruction. Uncapable of feeling, we destroy, reck, and bomb. A button, a lever. That is all it takes, but as gravity plays the game, we don't realize the destruction we create. The fire, death. Hell. 

It resembles a brain wash from the moment of birth. For example, Muslim children are tought into believing that the west is the enemy, the total enemy, no matter what. They are robots, uncapable of feeling or knowing anything else. This is their truth.    

A Waste Of Time

To begin with (the cluster of critiscism is substancial), this "David Crystal" has not one, not a single interesting blog entry in his entire Blog. It is simply amuzing. Maybe it's me, but this whole page iis a waste of bits, and Wi-Fi. It is just an insult to my computer. Maybe it is just the way he thinks, or it is just the fact that I don't like this guy's name. 

For example: "If there is a queue of 5 people, which person is second from last? person 3 or 4?"(Crystal, March Entry). This is simply an arguement to entertain one's mind for a while and t think about it, for the simple fact, you have nothing else to do! I simply don't care if I'm first, last, fifth, twenty second, or not even standing in the line! This is an empty arguement used to dispose any kind of real and valuable thought you can have. 

I could simply go on, and on how every entry since 2006 begins with: "A correspondent writes", and how each and every post brings you emptiness, and back to the same problem, not even having resolved the question in the first place.

For instance: "The distinction between life and death can be a bit fuzzy, when applied to language." (Crystal, August Entry). Who is he to ask, or propose these questions? Life and death? Not even the greatest sages! The "distinction of life and death" "BIT FUZZY". Give me a literary brake please. I just can't go on. I'm sorry. 

Ironic, Grinding War (Chps 6-7 SHV)

Normally war has two sides. Sides that shoot in opposite direction saving their own bottoms, and as well protecting their country and their fellow country-men. But after finding this particular case as Vonnegut describes it, I realize that wars have more than two sides:"He was marking the boundary between the American and English sections of the compound... It was a familiar symbol from childhood." (SHV pg 144). fighting a common enemy, always there will be division within alliance, it is what Vonnegut transmits, some kind of racism that makes union impossible even within friendly rifles. It is human isolation, and the incapability of being able to bond with other beings. It is almost like one for one, and all for none. 

Something that is said, and is very wise indeed, is that in order to maintain self confidence, and a sane mind, your physical mind and psyche, the reflection of yourself to yourself plays a big role. "If you stop taking pride in your appearance, you will very soon die." (SHV pg 145). This is realistic for what you physically see is what gives you the impresion of being alive or dead. It's the reflection of your mood and spirit. It shows the will you have to move on and live. Desire to exist. Ultimatelly it is what you think of yourself and what others will see at first glabce from you. They will see you alive or dead. 

Finally, the most vivid image I had in this chapter was this one, that Vonnegut describes:

"The axles of the cart were greased with the fat of dead animals."(SHV pg 157). It could obviously be inferred as a metaphore, describing how like the grease of the Jews and Gypsies was used as soap and candles, the grease of the animals, indirectly helped to make the axles of the wheelbarrow go smooth, and so the wheels can spin and spin, making it easier to push. But the big picture is actually how death, and casualties in war, as a matter of fact help the parties in many ways. either from starting a long wanted war, from a massacre to political news and totally altered propaganda agianst the opposite party. It is a convenient, ironic war. Isn't it?

The Mental Mascaraed (SHV Chp 5)

In the following chapter, Vonnegut gives us an alluring view of the minds of the protagonists. The are unvealed from the interior, out. "It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them."(SHV pg 104). This is the reflection of a state of mind incomprehensible to the typical character in the novel. For example the unexplicable weeping of Billy in the evenings. It is over the usual thought and stereotype of the characters. It's the disease that makes the novel interesting, the mind eating interest that gathers its thought, its nucleus in the rareness, and eccentricity of all setting and time. This is the fourth dimension, the disease that is not a disease, but an advance in evolution, to a different brain and different eyes. 

A human "revelation" is also described, as Vonnegut puts it in context. We fight here on earth, on our third dimension to strive in war or in peace. We venture into believing the universe's fait is put in our hands. But oh, no. Vonnegut has the decency to give other forms of life (if existing) the benefit of actaully being better than us. So referring to Vonnegut's clever scenario, he mentions: "How- how does the Universe end? said Billy. "We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Trafalmadorian test pilot presses a started button, and the whole Universe disappears." (SHV pg 117). It is as simple as that. Not from wars, or a disaster, or hunger, or disease. Just a button. A simple button, and Boom. The end. 

BarcaLounger of the Trafalmadores

In A Mirage (SHV Chps 3-4)

In the upcoming chapters Billy evolves, revealing more of him and his life to the reader than in the first few pages. It's like actually meeting a real person. As he tells his experience in war, I realize he is not a war like person, he never was, is or will be. He went throught it as one goes through a street, jus t accepting what crosses it, and what runs through it, non stop. 

"It's all just crazy. None of it's true!" "It's all true." Billy's anger was not going to rise with hers." (SHV pg  29). With this it is perspicuously seen that Billy's thoughts have no argument. He is convinced of what he saw, and will never be proven otherwise. He doesn't have the need to argue, hence, he has no point to prove it to anyone, not even his daughter. He was abducted by Trafalmadorians. For sure. 

In the war, in the chilly lake it is ironic how Billy has no problem being beaten up by an American. After all he is prepared to face death any moment in his delirius life. He just lets the kicks pass trhough his body as the cold passes through his feet in the freezing lake. Inevitable. 

"The soldiers blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh." (SHV pg 51). 

As far as I have read in the novel no religius aspects have been mentioned. Pilgrim is not exactly a religius man, and does not seek salvation in God's arms. So, It is curius how Vonnegut mentions, or at least insinuates tha the "bullet proof bible" is seen more as actually bulletproof, as if when you put it in your left side coat pocket, as if it were to save you from a deadly shot to the heart. "A bullet proof Bible is a bible small enough to be slipped into a soldiers breast pocket, over his heart. It is sheathed in steel." (SHV pg 54). It could be taken more deeply, as if soldiers where only to use it to save their skins, not even bothering to read it. 

Another irony in the novel (and more yet to be found...) is the following: "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future." (SHV pg 60). For off course Billy can do this! He does it all the time. Maybe not physically, but he sails through time, every second. blinks and goes from POW camps, to warm beds and marriages in New York. Perhaps he can't actually change destiny when he does it, but rather lives parts of his life not in the corresponding, natuarl order. The past can't be changed, but for the present and the future, it can be easily done. You just have to turn a round in the street to change the present, and be prepared to live the future. Nut yes, the point is made. What is meant to happen, happens. the future, The present, and the past are unchangable, because they happen the way they happen and are meant to be that way. Time is unchangable, he lives on. 

Even though Billy's life had not been based on the war, he sees it everywhere. Not ina paranoic and lunatic sense. But with what I think is a metaphore: "The wedding had taken place that afternoon in a gaily striped tent in Billy's backyard. The stripes were orange and black." (SHV pg 72), he demonstrates how subtle life can be. Ironic. A merry weding day, turned to a prisoner of war banner. A coincidence in nature. A stabbing one. Life and war are bothe hard. like the old saying goes: "Life is a battlefield". 

Finally I am convinced that Billy is definitively not a soldier and not supposed to be in war, and all heavens point to it. "They were soldiers' coats. Billy was the only one who had a coat from a dead civilian. So it goes." (SHV pg 82). He is not meant not be in war, but somehow it is relevant for what happens in his life, for his type of person.

And so it goes.

A Bizarre War (SHV chps. 1-2)

The very first slice of the novel is extremely excentric. You excpect a war novel with blood, death, and destruction but it is really a novel that is rather self analyzing in the sense that it doesn't describe war in the big picture, but in a very specific point of view form one single man. 

One of the most interesting themes is time. Time runs and doesn't stop. A second ago is history. We are history, the past. In the novel I could sense the loss of time being critical, and even more loosing it in war. "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time"(pg 23). 

When the author talks about the alien kidnapping and time in the alien land being years and yaers, but on Earth only a milisecond, it basically means how hard life has been, but how quick and brief it can be described avoiding all pain and unecessary details that only make the story longer and boring. Finally, until now the other observed theme is how everything in life became simple, swift, not mattering. 

Refering to the novel in the part where birds are first introduced: "Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is except for the birds." (pg 19). This could be compared to many Holocaust novels, where even when the people were suffering in the labour and death camps, and were hungry, the sun was shining bright, and the weather was splendid. It is the same as with the birds. They don't care if there is a massacre or not , the birds will always sing. Even after war, the memory lives on, and hunts each and every one of them down in a certain way. After it ends it lives on with you and changes the way you are. This is why it is a bizarre war. 

You Are Not The Godfather To Be Moving That slow!

Life is no to go wondering around and just wishing for something to happen. Some people do this. People who have nothing to do, or have nothing to worry about in the day. People who's efficiency and productivity level is as low as their incompetence to complete a simple task.
Slowness can ruin my whole day. People who are slow can ruin my whole day. Let it be in the street, where people who call themselves drivers have absolutely no ability at all to drive a car, and get stuck in a speed bump, in first gear. Drivers who have the smallest car and when parking maneuver it with the most greatest royal slowness as if they had an intercontinental,16 wheeler, container transporter. It makes me sick. 
It also happens in hallways, when everybody has to hurry to their class, girls stop to talk with friends, of how wonderful was their nail polishing session, just in the middle of the hallway, blocking the way, ignoring the outside world completely narrowing it down to themselves and their pretty fingernails, with no future in mind. 
Ah and in dorways or stairways! Just sitting as if their was no one else, and no tomorrow. I simply can't stand it. People like this have no awareness of the future. Or consequences to being incompetent or late. Life for slow minders is a colorfull rainbow were max speed is two meters per hour. 
It doesn't matter how much I yell out the window of my car, or how much I curse the people chatting in front of me blocking my way to math class, or blocking the entrance to the supermarket. I can yell and scream, shout and make a tantrum, but slowness is not going to get any faster. It is how it is, and someday I will learn to tolerate it, or will explode in violence and wrath and end up in prison. I wish myself good luck. 
Enviado desde mi BlackBerry de Movistar

Elysium

I live/ in a/ wonder/land world A

Dreaming/ not ne/cessa/ry in/my mind B

Perfect /as it/ is, our/ faith/ unfurls A

For this/is the/ prime/ of human/kind B

We brea/the the/clean/ bright blue/ sky C

This is/ the new/ time, time/of the/refined B

About The Title Of My Twilight Zone Entry

The title of my blog entry is "pretty" or prekrassnyi in Russian. This is becasue the only word that the female character (Elizabeth Montgomery) utters, is this, prekrassnyi, when she sees the dress in the store. The male character (Charles Bronson) also calls her by this name when he sees her in the dress, as a symbol of peace, and he also is out of his uniform. They walk together towards a better future. 

прекрасный (Pretty)

In the episode "Two" of the Twilight Zone, I do believe there is poetic justice for the good, since after all of that chaos and wreck, after nothing was left with life, these two people that had also suffered in disaster met. Differences first made them apart, but lastly love and pure solitude brought them together, exhausted of fighting, of hostilities. 

Even though, the characters had also caused destruction (clearly, they were soldiers), they receive the bolder, the fairer justice, which was finally to be in peace again, and literally loving the opponent. They receive the correct sentence, for almost a lifetime of struggle. Love. The action is coherent to the verdict.  

MSN (Mostly Spelled Neatly)

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

Good afternoon. How are you doing today?
I happen to be one of the best photographers around the 90210 district.
Who are you? Tell me about you, you little nice man.

cookierapist1138 dice:

EE hello!!!
My name is a Boltok Sagdiev
Mediapervertion90210 dice:

Oh my! How interesting! Where is that name from?

cookierapist1138 dice:

You little nice a man too.
Mediapervertion90210 dice:


Thank you very much, but actually, I'm quite big.

cookierapist1138 dice:

I like much your face.

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

Where are you from?

cookierapist1138 dice:

Oh, I can see that dear comrade.

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Oh yes 1984 great novel! Loved it!

cookierapist1138 dice:

I am from northern beautiful Kazakhstan.
It is lovely up there, you know?

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Oh my, could you send me a link with your picture? That would be nice!
cookierapist1138 dice:

Ok Mr.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/Borat280906_228x419.jpg
There you go, Mr. American.

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

In the mean time, I would like to take an opportunity to introduce myself.
Hahaha that is quite an interesting picture you have there.

cookierapist1138 dice:

You like a my picture, it tells a lot about myself, you see I'm quite sporty!

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

I love the shorts!

cookierapist1138 dice:

Yes, shorts are much comfortable for me...If you know what I mean.
Tell me about yourself, please I would love to get to know you better (If you know what I mean). 

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Please take a look at me, you will have a blast with it! Like my friend said (he died last year...Prostate Cancer) "A picture is worth more than 1,000 words." Is it not?

cookierapist1138 dice:

It is!
Oh... I'm sorry to hear about your friend, was he like life partner to you?

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

http://itola.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/fat-guy.jpg
Indeed, life partner indeed.

cookierapist1138 dice:

Jesus, Oh Mary Pineapple juice! That is quite a big hamburger.
Mediapervertion90210 dice:

I was born in Alabama. I like crappy food like Hamburgers and French Fries, especially from TGI Fridays!

cookierapist1138 dice:

So tell me about America, is it all crappy, or just some places like Midwest? Like in Kazakhstan we use all women to work land, and we usually sun bath with pretty ladies while they launder or sell their bodies to feed us.
You understand?
I hope I don't scare you off.

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Very well I do understand. In America we feed on other things, like greed and money!

cookierapist1138 dice:

Oh I get it.
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For example we have money jokes with Chuck Norris in them: "If you have 5 Dollars and Chuck has 5 Dollars, Chuck has more money than you" Hahaha. Lovely

cookierapist1138 dice:

But let me tell you, you have perfect punctuation
Mediapervertion90210 dice:

Yes. I have been practicing lately

cookierapist1138 dice:

You missed a period!! Hahaha I laugh!!

Mediapervertion90210 dice:

You too!
I am back from dinner. Jesus, I'm full!
Oh, By the way. Jesus is a historical and religious figure of Christianity! Most Americans don't like Muslims, but don't worry I am not like the others! (Are you Muslim? I just took a shot at it.)

cookierapist1138 dice:

No. I am not Muslim. I believe in Oksana, the holy bull. Do you believe in Oksana?

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No, I rather believe in Apulapu, the holy burger.

cookierapist1138 dice:

Ok. I understand. It is nice!!

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Why don’t you give me a call. My cell is 313-496-1959.

cookierapist1138 dice:

Ok I call you. Wait I get my new Cranberry out!

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Very nice!

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Oh nice conversation we had! I like parties were you scream and tell you love me! (I love you too)

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Haha me too we should meet right now and go to party!

cookierapist1138 dice:

Yes you know, I brought some soma, from back home.
We can use it all up, all up!
We go on vacation!

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Yes! I love Soma. Soma is good, soma is fun, I have soma all day long!
Ok, so why don´t we meet at my apartment and party?
See you here!!
Bye Bye.

cookierapist1138 dice:

Bye Bye.

Insightful Quotes by Insightful People

All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.  ~Mark Kennedy

Ink Or Bits

As we welcome the rise of technology, we are caught in the sonic boom of progress and forget old fashions, and old ways of living. With our new innovations, we are more efficient and bring about easier and faster ways to complete tasks. We managed after all this rejoice, to forget truly about life without a PC. It was meant to happen, it was meant the moment the first computer was sold and we discovered how to use it even for the simplest thing. Technology gives, but it also takes. "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." (Karl Marx)

What Ms.Boxer gives us is a complete view of blogs, and their superiority to books or papers. She gives clear and supported ideas about why would it not be easy to do a book about blogs. But what is truly admirable is the way in which she doesn't attack the books, but rather she shows why a blog is more efficient and gives the reader understanding not leaving us with incomplete information of why a blog is so useful. She begins with her problem, and then introduces us into the blog world (for those who are not familiar with them), and makes an almost visual list of the blogging ways and web advantages of blogs. "A blog, for those who don't know, is a journal or log that appears on a Web site. It is written on line, read on line, and updated on line. It's there for anyone with an Internet connection to see and (in many cases) comment on." ("Blogs" by Sara Boxer). With this she justifies the practicality of blogging and how information of any sort, can be updated in a second, and give you fresh and accurate information about basically any subject. Unlike the blog, a newspaper or a book will always remain the same, and will always be "closed" to any new information. A book is perpetual, it stays, when you finish a book, you close it. When you finish reading a blog entry you know there will always be more, and can always interact with its author. 

Nevertheless, I will always appreciate a book more. You can touch it, you feel it. It is physical. a blog you are not in contact with. You can only view it through a screen. A physical boundary. 

It is actually not a race, or a competition. It is not apples against apples. Books are for one thing blogs are for others. 

Boxer gives blogs a special advantage, she shows us how one blog is not really just one, meaning that in the internet "links" are created, therefore any type of information that is seeked will lead you to other points of views an opinions, to endless possibilities. "Links are the Web equivalent of footnotes, except that they take you directly to the source." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). Boxer proves a true thing with little information, or argument, she is right. Information in a book is limited. Information in the web is basically unlimited. 

A very important advantage in a blog, is being able to share any information you want in very little time, unlike a book takes time, it comes in a complete piece, or volume (sometimes more than one), and you need and editor, a publisher, and most important: buyers. A blog is free, and writers can be anyone from a student to a dog walker. "There are political blogs, confessional blogs, gossip blogs, sex blogs, mommy blogs, science blogs, soldier blogs, gadget blogs, fiction blogs, video blogs, photo blogs, and cartoon blogs, to name a few. Some people blog alone and some in groups...

Every sport, every war, every hurricane brings out a crop of bloggers, who often outdo the mainstream media in timeliness, geographic reach, insider information, and obsessive detail. You can read about the Iraq war from Iraqi bloggers, from American soldiers (often censored now), or from scholars..." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). A blog can be crafted by anyone. Thanks to this free way of writing, information that otherwise would never see the light in a respectable public, can now be spread out all over the globe. Literature is not limited now to poetry, novels, or history, our eyes were opened to a new way of writing, bloggers supply information that otherwise is so specific cannot be found in a book, because a respectable audience would not be found. "Are they a new literary genre? Do they have their own conceits, forms, and rules? Do they have an essence?" ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). 

Most of the bloggers are genuine helpers that know about a certain subject. you are not enslaved to read the blog. The author will only post useful info, since this is a quick system, no time to lose. "They're not responsible for your education.. Keep up with me don't or don't. It's up to you." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). Because we need information quick, neat, and clean in Blogging we care much if we use vivid pictures or nice spelling. Boxer surely knows it is important, but since a blog is not a classic novel, what matters is that it helps you out, and that you get it. It doesn't have to be fancy or embellished with nice words. Efficiency. "Sometimes they don't even stop to punctuate." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer).

finally to think about mixing a "reckless" blog with a "slow" book is not bizarre. It's a literary and intellectual combination. It's the way of the future, books first provided internet with information. Now internet makes books, makes better books with the point of view of not one single author, but of 100 million of them.