Blog o’ APEnglish

Image analysis

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20080326/

Dude!  Check out this picture!  So it’s this image of five girls/young women hiding their faces from the camera.  The country, so the caption tells us, is Morocco.  They don’t seem unhappy or too terribly shy–they’re giggling.  The girls are dressed in bright, vibrant colors.  Their dresses are a shocking pink and their (what are those, skirts?) are a light and cheery blue.  Also, we can see their legs and shoes quite clearly.  The shoes look clean and no holes are visible.  The legs look quite healthy, not emaciated or scratched or bruised. This is a relief to see after scanning through several photos that showed abject poverty.

The backdrop is less joyous; they sit on rubble that is possibly concrete or clay, and the photo conveys a sense of decay and deriliction.  There is some graffiti scratched in it, although it’s not in English so I couldn’t tell you what it says.  It’s very messy, in any case.

I love this photograph!  The girls are denying two things of the outside world:  First they are denying the camera by hiding their faces.  They will not accept the imposition of the the camera holder or us, the viewers.  They’re not scared at all, they’re just not interested in sharing.

Second, they are denying the depressing backdrop where they live.  Their health and dress and sense of self-confidence is a defiance of the dereliction of the world around them.  You go, girls.

One more interesting thing about the photo is how it shows the girls as one collective unit.  Each girl-shape touches another girl-shape.  They might be uncomfortable with the camera, but they are utterly comfortable with each other.

Overall, this picture conveys the sense that these girls are united, together, a unit of joy against anything that might try to impose–whether it is we the viewers or the poverty of the world around them..  Love it.

Okay, you know what I do for fun?   I go to my favorite internet forum and argue with people.  Mostly I argue about the patriarchy.  I have a thread that’s sort of like a blog in which I post feminist critiques of books/movies/magazine articles, talking about what they say about women.  Then I argue with the people who disagree with what I said.  Really, this is how I spend my time. forums.xkcd.com if you’re curious.

So to be honest, taking what someone says and picking it apart is really nothing new to me.  I look at a piece of writing or other rhetoric and *immediately* go “what do I think about this?  What’s bullshit about this?”

That said, the advice was written in an interesting way.  I laughed when he talked about the students who couldn’t find a source that said what they were going to say.  Not the goal, children!

What I did find helpful:

The knowledge that this is what college writing will consist of.  What a lucky break!  I love this stuff!   The only hard part will be relearning to edit my pieces, since mostly I just publish first drafts.

And the advice about asking yourself why you want to take a certain position.  I am forever forgetting to do that, and then I have to backtrack, which wastes valuable time and is of course embarrassing if anyone sees my earlier position.  Having that advice crystallized was quite helpful.

Ahahaha.  To be honest I wasn’t planning on reading all of that, but in the end I did because, well, because it was so darn delightful  Who knew that a 17th century writer could be so eminently readable?

Okay, so what was the point of this piece?  It is a satire.  The speaker in the essay is saying “let’s have the poor sell their babies for food; that will certainly solve poverty.”  But the author is saying, and we are meant to read, that this is a goddamn stupid idea, and so are any ideas like it that have to do with weird economic solutions to our problems rather than changing our values in how we treat the poor.

The culmination of this piece is in the paragraph where he lists all the other possible solutions.  In a manner bereft of brevity, unlike his previous persona throughout the piece, the speaker enumerates several other solutions to the problem of “too much poverty” under the guise of “these are stupid.”  Some of the most compelling, I thought:

Of using neither cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture[…] Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants.

These are all sound solutions based on moral values, in stark contrast to “eating babies.”

Another awesome part:

“I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary
work, […] I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing. ”

This raises the point in as close to an explicit manner as he gets, that the “interest” anyone would have in selling their children for food is really not an interest at all.  The idea is the height of absurdity.  I don’t know, it’s difficult to analyze satire.

And in the beginning:

“It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms.”

This passage strongly implies that the main reason for the melancholay is not that there are poor people, but that the passerby have to see them.  The streets are “crowded” and the passerby are bothered by the begging.  It’s our first hint that the speaker does not have the women’s best interests at heart, but rather the sensitivities of the well-off.

I love this piece.  Total brilliance.

(Word count: 450.)

Hey, this was what I did earlier.  You liked it, you really liked it!

Okay, moving on.  So some strategies that Chesterton uses:

1.  Visual imagery.  The mental images called up by Chesterton are very clear.  Example:  “Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down again on one’s face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange fairy rain…”  Absolutely gorgeous imagery.  It immerses the reader in his world and keeps us reading; detail is a most important tool of any artist.

2.  Whimsy.  “…as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree.”  Chesterton keeps the tone light and nonthreatening.  Many of the things he says are humorous, which is a most valuable tool of rhetoric as if you can make your reader laugh she is more easily swayed, more ready to listen and less likely to feel attacked even when they disagree.

3.  Parallel structure.  Especially in the main paragraph “minor morals and major morals,” many sentences make use of parallel structure.  In that paragraph it is a very useful device because it helps us keep track of being said, and, later, it allows us to expect what is coming next.  He says something, we know its opposite is coming.  It makes the essay very easy to read and lends a sense of harmony to it as well.

4. Allusions.  Chesterton makes several allusions, to Ibsen, the Turks, and (several times) God or religious canon.  Allusion is always effective in such doses because it makes the essay more than just what is written.  It lends the essay authority and gives a deeper feeling, a broader coverage.  It’s like making use of built-in metaphors.

Great job, G.K.!

Birth Control:

The pill!  It’s wonderful!  If a woman takes a pill, it means she doesn’t have to rely on men to bring condoms. It’s also more reliable than the condom–pills don’t break.  It can work for more than just birth control as well; through the pill, women can control their menstrual cycles and that is definitely a good thing.  Whoever invented the pill did a truly wonderful service to women and their sexuality.

Listen to this.  When the pill was invented, it was touted as sexual freedom for women.  But at that time, condoms were already around and in widespread use by men, and it protects against pregnancy and STDs as well, which the pill does not.  The pill causes pain and discomfort for many of the women who are on it, starting with cramps and moodswings and going to severe nausea.  It is quite a nuisance to remember to take each day–you have to take the pill even when you’re not sure that you’re going to be sexually active.  So tell me, reader: for whom do the pills mean freedom?

Weapons work that way, don’t they? Normally, to get such a clear visual cue, pointing our eye to where it needs to go (the victim), you’d have to set it up. But swords, guns, knives, and flags make a line that brings our eye to the victim. Not right away, though. The man holding the flag is in the foreground, and he has a very powerful stance. Actually, with his legs planted wide apart and the flag cutting across his body, he makes the shape of a star. But the straight line of the pole and the upward diagonal of the flag itself make an arrow–in both senses, as a weapon and as a visual guide.

The photo I was reminded of as I read this was the Vietcong one, with the man about to be executed. The weapon, the strong horizontal line, the hands behind the back–the strong, terrifying dominance of the man on the left contrasted with the helplessness of the man on the right….wow.

Historic photo, great essay.

The most compelling observation: power in America exists above all in social norms and pressure, what is expected and what is taboo.

1. I agree that this is true.  Who would ever walk between two people who are having a conversation?  Or spend the entire day walking backwards?  Or have sex in public?  Social norms compel us like no other force.  If a government was not socially acceptable, it would not exist; if a social norm is illegal, it will happen whatever the government does–see: prohibition.

2.  The idea that this applies only to America is preposterous.  It applies all over the world.  Why do you think Chinese women bound their feet?  For their health?  Because if they didn’t, they would become social outcasts.  We need society, desperately, all of us, and we make enormous sacrifices in order to belong.

3.  I also don’t see that this tendency is either increasing or decreasing. It just is, and it always has been, and we are several generations of evolution away from that changing.

One out of three ain’t bad.

Two pictures. The first, entitled King Takes Queen, is an ad for The Tudors, a television show about Henry VIII and his court, including the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, both shown here. The second, a more modern image, is an ad for a high-end fashion company called Dolce & Gabbana.

So what’s up with these images? A casual glance at either gives the impression that we have caught those posed in some kind of lust-filled embrace. The first is, perhaps, more intimate: although the King is aware of us, the Queen seems completely in the moment. Meanwhile in the Dolce & Gabbana ad, four others look on as we do at the central action—their situation is not private.

The images are both meant to be titillating. Look at the expression on the face of Henry VIII. It is compelling, possessive, intimate. You can’t exactly say the couple is in proper period clothing, either. Henry’s doublet is missing the traditional clothes that go underneath, and Anne is wearing what can only be described as a negligee. As for D&G, central to the image are the woman’s legs, bare, in strappy heels, posed alluringly. Everyone in this picture also appears thoroughly lathered with something, perhaps baby oil.

After giving the pair of images a more careful study, however, it becomes apparent that the photographers in this case have masterfully crafted images which successfully eroticize sexual violence. Look at the goblet slipping from Anne’s hand. It’s spilling red wine that looks disconcertingly like blood, and it’s positioned on a level with her (what word should I have used here) crotch. Her expression on closer examination looks not necessarily dazed with pleasure, but simply uncomfortable. Maybe she’s having trouble breathing. That wouldn’t be surprising: Henry’s left hand is not caressing her neck, but gripping it. His other hand is placed on her torso in a way that suggests downward movement. His expression, as mentioned before, is possessive and not romantic. It seems almost angry. He’s not looking at Anne; he’s not involved with her as a person. He’s looking at us.

The expression on the man with sunglasses in the D&G ad is also quite threatening. Unlike Henry, though, we can’t see all of his face. We can’t see his eyes; we’re not sure what he’s feeling, we don’t know what’s his motivation. His body language is very powerful, though. The straight and powerful line of his arm recalls the picture of the hate crime in action, the one with the flag, and also the Vietcong man about to be murdered. He dominates the picture. Like Henry, the line of his arm visually separates the woman’s body from her head. The other men, meanwhile, surround the couple, and look on in mild interest.

The chief contrast between the two pictures is in value. King Takes Queen is dark, alluring, and private. The background is a neutral shade of brown in order to make the people pop. D&G is lighter, although not in a light-hearted way. Rather the impression one comes away with is stark, modern, and edgy. Although it is meant to titillate, the image is also meant to be cool and aloof—this company is obviously too modern for intimacy.

Either way, both men are threatening, both women are trapped, and the overall impression, when one thinks critically about it, the images are both frankly disturbing.

It was a birthday party. Insig’s birthday party.  She was turning eighteen.  It was May 23.
It wasn’t the birthday party she would have later, going out to a restaurant with her friends, laughing, talking, if skirting around all the “lasts” they were trying not to think about.  She was the baby of her friends, and it would be the last birthday they would have as a group.  It wasn’t sad, really; they were all looking forward to moving on—can’t WAIT to get out of this damn school—but it was an emotion of a different kind, like when you realize that you can think about the fact that your cat died and not be sad, or when you realize you can’t remember the name of your first boyfriend.
No, this was the family birthday party, and she felt no ambivalence as to the fact that it would be her last.  “Thank God!” would be the appropriate two words here.
Her Aunt Avalon had showed up late, loud, large, unwashed, bringing her ugly little dog with her.  “Hello everyone!” she bellowed as she barged through the door.  “I’m here!  I brought presents and you can have them if you give me a hug!”
Insig’s mother glared.  “Hi.” she said. “I just know you were planning on asking me about my new shirt, right?”
Meanwhile, Grandma Torvaun wrung her hands.  “Let’s open the presents,” she said, smiling a smile that didn’t light up her eyes.

THEN INSIG BLEW THEM ALL TO SMITHEREENS AND LAUGHED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHA

WORLD WAR Z: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE ZOMBIE WAR

Oh, snap.   Best.  Premise.  Ever.  So it’s this horror novel in the style of a nonfiction history, containing the accounts of about forty individuals recounting their experience of the first world war with the zombies, which almost caused humanity’s extinction.

Apparently this reviewer enjoyed it.  He uses words such as thrilling, addictive, intelligent, spooky and inventive to describe it.  It’s “both a scary story and an intelligent one: a rare treat for a horror fan.”  He also compares it favorably to other horror novels for its creative explanations of zombies and literary merit.

As for cultural context?  Well, zombies have been quite popular lately; that shall certainly help sales.  But I think it’s more important to think of our own war going on right now.  A lot of rhetoric has been based on the fear that the terrorists will come to our country and fight us there, and a lot of people worry about that.  In this way, the novel plays on our contemporary fears in ways both humorous and serious.