“Trust Me, In These Parts, Hot Dogs Actually Repel Bears” by Ian Fraser:
This is a humorous piece where Fraser parlays his experience as an inexperienced traveler. The title insinuates that there would be a situation of someone trying to ward off a bear with a Hot Dog but there is no such scene. He uses the title as an example of bad advice that is readily available by tourist loathing locals, which is also the message of the piece. The disappointment of there not being a scene with a Hot Dog defense against a raging Grizzly was enough for me to disregard any message that Fraser had intended on conveying. The element of humor in this piece works because it is common to receive and follow bad advice.
Little Red Riding Hood Revisited by Russell Baker:
It is obvious that Baker is trying to make a joke by revising a classic story but what he actually does is suck the fun and life out of it. Many people have converted fairytales well, such as Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked, but Baker fails to deliver the same effectiveness. What was lost in this revisiting is the innocence and simplicity of the story. Baker convolutes the dialogue with out of date slang and the use of advanced words, losing the concept of the original plot. After all of the brilliant readings for this course I found that this piece was anti-climactic and that it isolates certain people from relating to a simple story.
I apologize for these negative reviews. The sands of our lives are falling through the hourglass fast and the last thing I want to do is spend that valuable time being complacent. This is one of many of my favorite quotes and I want to leave it with everyone to help shake off all this hate:
To be is to be related. To isolate is death. To me, ultimately, martial arts mean honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phony things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that is very hard to do. - Bruce Lee
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1 comments:
I think you kind of missed the point of the Baker article: it was intended to show how awful that kind of writing is, not to be taken seriously. But your reaction is valid, in the sense that that bureaucratic language DOES suck the life out of whatever you're talking about!
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