smyers

McMurphy v.s. Nurse

smyers — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 04:36:15 +0000

McMurphy was the cure that came into the ward, while the nurse was the sickness that touched most of the patients. Before McMurphy came, they were all touched by the virus the nurse held. She made it seem like they had choices and the good life but they soon relized thanks to their savior, McMurphy, that they were being over run by the evil woman. McMurphy did often take advantage of the patients, but I do not believe they minded for how much they all gained and experienced thanks to him. And even though the nurse seems to get her revenge on McMurphy at the end by making him a vegetable, she can never remove McMurphy that now exists in each and every one of the patients.

Trickster…

smyers — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:46:42 +0000

In the chapter Amusements, the tricksters were Victor and Sadie, pulling a joke on Dirty Joe. Dirty Joe had a little too much to drink and passed out at an amusement park. The trick was hilarious, putting passed out Joe on the back of a roller coaster for a day and making fun of his lifeless body. But, the trick was ruined when all of the white people showed up and made a crowd. They spoiled the joke for Sadie and Victor because the security gaurds showed up when they saw the crowd and heard the roar they were making. Victor was blamed for the prank by the roller coaster opperator and the security gaurd chased him into a “crazy mirrors.” This is where Victor notices that no matter what type of mirror it is or what special effects on changing the body of the individual he still was and looked like an Indian. This story is sad because Victor and Sadie was having such a good time watching Dirty Joe harmlessly ride the roller coaster, but when the white people showed up they ruined the fun for the two indians.
The tricksters in This is What it Means, were all located in Thomas’ past. With all of the kids making fun of his stories or picking on him because he tried to fly, or even beating him up just because they were drunk. Though all of his peers made fun of him, Thomas still would reach out and help them like he helped Victor. This story really didn’t have any pranks or jokes but it did tell of some of the things Thomas had to go through and how he was always willing to help anyone who needed it.
The funhouse was about an indian woman who needed change in her family life. She had done everything for her family and they in return just sat around, drank beer, and pulled pranks on her. The prank mentioned in the story was when the boy farted so loud, it scared a mouse into running up the woman’s leg. Nobody in the family helped her get it out and this really pissed the indian woman off. She went on strike by telling them to cook there own food and to do all of the household chores that she was usually responsible for. One little prank changed her life as she took charge of the family and will change it for the better.

Confused

smyers — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 04:44:47 +0000

I am very confused on what is going on in our new novel, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Each and every chapter is a different story of what seem to be the same characters. They do not have any relativity to the chapter or story before or after it and I am wondering if the author is going to somehow tie them all together. I have never read a novel quite like this but leave it up to Professor Sherwood to give us something new to look at. It is very interesting to look at and keeps me wanting to read more just because of how weird the style of this novel is set up to be.

Movie to novel

smyers — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:15:22 +0000

The different narration between the movie and the novel makes the two very different. In the movie, it seems like Mcmurphy is the main character and we tend to see things through his perspective. While in the novel Chief Bromden is the main character or narrator of the story. We really only hear his thoughts and feelings from the novel because he is acting deaf so he can hear what is really going on in the ward. It would have been quite difficult to make the Chief the main character of the movie because he wouldn’t have been able to say anything. Just a simple change of narration really can change the story or the perspective of the story for the reader or the viewer (of the movie).

Storyland…Angel site

smyers — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:56:59 +0000

I absolutley thought these forms of electronic literature were very unique and fun. Compared to the previous types of electronic literature, I actually enjoyed looking at these and took in the experience. Storyland made me want to fill in the blanks that were missing in each of the stories. This is what I thought the point of the site was, to stretch one’s mind to fill in all of the blanks and to attempt to establish an actual story.
As for the “angel site,” if I would have ran into this site outside of class I would have been a bit “freaked out.” The graphics were so horrible that it seemed like it would have been impossible for somebody that knew how to hack into somebody’s website to do such a horrible job. But, I really didn’t see how this was a type of literature what so ever. I could clearly read the website, but it is hard to invision those sites of being in the same class of some novels and poems. Though it may not have been literature in my eyes, I did like it more than the past electronic materials that we saw in the past.

Corridos, games, lies….Literature?

smyers — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:13:46 +0000

Professor Sherwood keeps pushing the limit of what we think is literature. I always knew a novel was literature and I always knew poems were types of literature, but songs or corridos? It is very interesting how Sherwood is pushing us to look into the words and really grab the meaning inside. I really like how he is pushing us to open our minds to the new possibilities instead of testing us on themes and plots of stories which most of us have done our entire lives in our English classes. Video game poetry, who has ever heard of it? Either our professor is crazy or he is trying to open our minds to different things. I know he is trying to open our minds, trying to get rid of the border line in our heads of what is and what is not literature.

House of Spirits (Part 1)

smyers — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 16:00:16 +0000

This book is one of the easiest books to get sucked into. Once you start reading it, the book is so hard to put down. Part of it, I believe, is because of the crazy nature of everything going on. Are we reading about humans? Or are we reading about another unknown species? The main characters seem to have crazy, unique, traits. The story line really supports and wants the reader to think they are reading about some unnatural world. Yet, some of the story remains to stay in touch with reality and events that could happen in every day life.

The first electronic poem

smyers — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:53:05 +0000

The electronic poem did not really do anything for me what so ever. It showed many words that were arranged in alphabetical order, starting with A’s and moving to the Z’s. The words came from every direction, top, bottom, left, right, ECT. This was a distraction as well as the words being different sizes. Some of the words were gigantic while the other ones were really tiny. The worst part of the poem was that it didn’t seem like it was a poem, but instead a handful of random words. There were a few positives to the poem. I caught that most of it was on a theme of sexual or gender oriented. This tells me that there must have been a point to the words coming from every direction possible. As well as the words seemed to be playful, they went up and down and spun all around. But, overall I can honestly say that I did not enjoy the poem.

Electronic Poem of lies

smyers — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 15:46:00 +0000

I really enjoyed the digital literature of lies. It was very interesting how the creator of the website could turn a list of lies into a form of literature. It was also surprisingly meaningful as well, unlike the random words of the digital literature game. The lies seemed like they have been put into some sort of order for the reader. The music and sound effects were very distracting in the digital game. It was much easier to read and take in the digital lies without any distractive noises. But, both types of digital literature teach the reader to open his/her mind to different experiences that the authors give them. It is quite a unique way to read and write literature.

The character of Tayo

smyers — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:59:30 +0000

I had to blog on how this character, Tayo, affected me as I read through Ceremony. It was like Tayo was going through Hell throughout the first half of the novel, making himself sick thinking of Rocky and how he was a huge disgrace to his family. I will admit that I absolutely hated reading this book at first just because how it made me feel. It put me in a depressed mood to see how sick this poor soldier was over his dead cousin and how his family did nothing to help him.
Although Tayo did pull through and I think the author, Leslie Marmon Silko, purposely made the first half of the novel depressing just so that the second half would seem like such a relief. I usually don’t have too many emotions towards a book, but this one really grabbed me because of the change in moods that I got from reading it. I think it made it that much better of a book, it was truly unique.