Jhumpa Lahiri my idol

Jhumpa Lahiri is probably one of my favorite authors. From her short stories to her novels to her collection of short stories have been peices that I ahve alwyas been able to identify with. I feel she truly captures being an outsider and how it is sometimes extremley difficult to fit in. I attended one of her lectures when I was in highschool and she trully preaches what she writes as well. She spoke a great deal about being a child of an immigrant family and difficulty of balancing both an indian culture and an american naitonality. Her stories always touched me because they deal with everyday issues that people do not realize are truly significant and are issues that need to be brought up and discussed. Hence the part A Choice of Accommodations effected me the same way as well. Being a child of indian parents has created a lot of issues when it comes connecting to them and having them understand the life I live especially when it came to high school. There was an enormous disconnect between what they understood high school to be and what high school in America truly is like. I feel Amit suffered from that same disconnect as well and him marrying a person that was not indian created another chasm between him and his parents. I feel that would be the same for me as well if i chose to marry someone outside my culture. It would create an enormous disconnect and it would definitely cause problems throughout the rest of my life not having my parents there for me which seems apparent in Amits life as well. Yet the most apparent disconnect is between the husband and wife and how their upbringings are creating issues in their marriage now. I feel that would be the same for me because I already see the different views I have on children, school, relationships, family from my boyfriend because of the different cultural upbringings.

Reactions to the Postsecret Lecture

We actually had a representative from Postsecret come speak at our highschool and it was probably one of the most memorable expereinces I have from that chapter in my life. Our school had invited this representative because our school was having issues with being too catty and not respecting other people's privacy. So when she came we had to participate in an activity where we all wrote a secret on a peice of paper place it in a box and then one by one we would choose a secret fromt he box and say it out loud in front of the entire school. This excerise truly changed the perespective any of us had about our highschool and the people who attended. I honestly had never expected any girl to have have any of the secrets that were spoken about to be possible. some girls had secrets about being abused or coming to the high school on scholarship and I guess a lot of these possibilities never crossed my mind that people could have been going through. By having our school call someone like this to our school to hold an activity like this where we did not know whose secret we were listneing to but knew it was one of hte girls in our school created a bond that was unable to be broken. It created a kind of sisterhood that brought all of us so close to each other that breaking that bond would be impossible. The effects of this guest elcture could be seen withing minutes when girls began to cry over a few of the secrets being said even though they had no idea whose secret they were listneing too. They felt a bond with that girl and same goes for that girl as well as she saw everyone around her feel her pain when her secret was read out. This happened during my junior year of highschool and after that my experience at highschool changed completley. It went from attending any sort of school to attending a sisterhood and now I am tied to these girls forever and its a bond that will never be broken.

Reactions to A Choice of Accommodations

Ugh, I hate thinking about stuff like this. Call me an intentional naïveté, but at the moment it feels like my college friends are going to be around for a long time. And let's be real, thirty years from now, I'm probably not going to be great friends with everyone I'm good friends with at this exact moment, but can't I keep a few? This story seems to present the idea that once college is over you will slowly but surely embark on your own life without your college friends. Which is probably true to a certain extent, but man, oh man, does that suck.
I'm sick of stories about miserable adults. Being a real grown-up is scary enough with literature constantly reminding me of all the really bad stuff. I'm not in denial, and I'm sure by the time I'm a senior I'll be read to move on, just like in high school, but after reading this story, my first reaction was just like, jeez, can't I just stay in school forever?
Now, now, as I said, I'm sure the time to move on will come. But it did get me thinking about and appreciating the glorious time of life that is being college student. When else will I be beholden to pretty much no one but myself? My work, my school work, is important but I'm not changing anyone's life but my own. I eat what I want when I want (possibly a poor choice, hello, bathing suit season). I'm not denying for a second that life is perfect, or that anyone here does absolutely work their tail off or have real problems. And the time will come for real jobs (I mean, I serve waffles now, and I love it, I eat a chocolate chip waffle with strawberries every Saturday, but it isn't a career exactly), and maybe getting married and/or having children, and that stuff is great, but isn't it a little awesome to be able to walk down to Oakland and get ice cream whenever you please and to go to parties in people's basements and try new things and laugh about stupid things and have off in the summertime?

Postsecret Lecture.

Tonight, Frank Warren, the man who created Postsecret, spoke at school. Basically, Postsecret is this ongoing art project that he created where people from all over the world design postcards expressing secrets that they want to share anonymously, and every Sunday, he posts certain ones. There have also been books released with these secrets, and he has received over 500,000 secrets. I remember being an angsty freshman and thought it was amazing that all of these people had the same angsty, lonely thought s that I did, and even though I’ve grown up a little from the perspective, I still continue to read them every Sunday; I feel like they have grown up with me and made me grow up in the long run.
Anyway, I was extremely excited for the lecture, because I have never gotten a chance to attend one at home. It was exactly what I thought it would be; he shared some secrets that he has received that mean something to him, and how the process of this collection began and then people were invited to go up to the microphone and share their secrets. This was the part that I was most interested in; some of the parts he spoke about were things I had already read about or seen in some videos of his lectures, but this part of the talks he gives is strictly unique to each lecture. I was curious to see whether people actually were able to strike up the nerve and share their deepest secrets to a roomful of strangers, which is scary enough, and their classmates, which I feel would be even scarier. But people lined up at the microphones and shared funny secrets about things that happened in their childhood, like mistaking condom wrappers for candy wrappers, or awful things like not being able to tell their father that their son was a result of rape.
As heartbreaking as some of these secrets were, they created a strangely beautiful moment in the very crowded gym. There was a deafening momentary silence as the audience processed the secret for themselves, and then immediately followed by the applause, like a thank-you to the person for being so brave as to be so vulnerable and willing to open themselves up to a room of strangers. As much as it was painful to hear these secrets and as painful as it probably was for them to share, I was disappointed when the last person told their secret.
I wrote my final paper on how beautiful experiences are far more valuable than material possessions, and it is nights like this that emphasize this fact for me. As cheesy as I guess it could have been considered, there is something remarkable about the fact that such trust can be generated by a room full of strangers that have bonded over nothing except a common knowledge of how it feels to hide something. There was something very beautiful about this sense of just general compassion and support and humanity that was spreading through the room, and it is something that I cannot really sum up in words. To the discussion on beauty, I think this also emphasizes Smith’s idea of abstract beauty being much greater than concrete beauty in that the lecture has shown me how beauty can exist in even the darkest places; it is almost like there is some extent of beauty in everything, that little light that continues to flicker amidst the shadow of something awful.

Interesting Fact

So I was reading more about Zadie Smith online when I came across an interesting fact that I did not know before and that was that Zadie Smith actually used an idea from a poem to start her novel, On Beauty. It is said that On Beauty is a modern version with a twist of the poem Howard's End by E. M. Forster. Thinking about this I started to actually not appreciate the book as much as I did before. When I first read the book I was shocked at how an author under the age of thirty is able to write a novel with such in depth chracters and ideas from scratch. How does an author wiht not that much expereince create a novel with so many layers and ideas to discuss that a person probablly could write a book just discussing this book, but now I'm not sure I feel that way. Evn though I understand that a poem is compeltley differnt than a book and a book requires more in depth analysis of each chracter and may require more substance and ideas, but still it did not stem from Zadie Smith's mind. Zadie Smith used another person's idea and created a novel based off that and became known as a true artist and writer. Yet does she really deserve the credit? She updated the poem to modern times and added race and geneder as issues in the novel but plot was taken from the poem so i just wanted to see what others felt about this and if they feel that Zadie Smith is still the author she is made out to be or should not be considered as great of a writer becuase the plot of her novel did not stem from her own mind and her own creativity but from someone else.

Going to Phipps on Thursday made me begin to consider, as we have been considering in class, what beauty really means. I thought it was interesting/funny that Hong immediately assumed that one of the stranger looking plants was fake. In our society, do we actually appreciate natural and real beauty? Is it too hard for us to assume that beauty can develop on its own, untouched by anyone else, with all of the pressures and procedures and manipulation that we have today? While Phipps is beautiful and full of natural beauty, in reality, it is placed and molded by the landscapers in such a way that makes it unnatural and almost too ideal, creating an environment of such standards that make it hard to look at the flowers around campus without comparing them to those in the conservatory.

Throughout the book, we are constantly bombarded with images of beauty, whether they be music, art, or people. However, beauty never seems to be clearly defined in absolute terms. I think Smith is making a point on how the extent to which we value unnatural beauty has made this become the natural way to think about beauty. She tries to emphasize the beauty of Kiki and the art in Carlene's home and other aspects of life that are naturally beautiful, and should evoke a sense of awe, but she cannot hide the fact that other aspects like Victoria seem to comment that the forced kind of beauty is still considered beautiful in a more obvious way. This beauty is very in-your-face throughout the novel, where the natural beauty is more subtle. This is also seen in Katie's painting, where the woman is considered ugly by societal standards yet Katie still considers her beautiful. I think that as much as the book attempts to define beauty as something natural and a little flawed and precious, it is something that will never be able to have a true, single applicable definition.

cheating in the 21st century

Most people don't find it surprising that the divorce rate in the United States is a whopping 50%. So basically, one in two people you see in the street most likely have been divorced in the past. Many times, divorces stem from financial problems, abuse, and of course, the infamous cheating machine.

In Zadie's Smith novel, Kiki and Howard both cheat on each other, yet in the end, Howard and Kiki realize all they want is each other. WHAT?! I'm sorry, but I feel like this scenario would never appear anywhere other than a novel or romance movie. I feel like a lot of people cheat because they are unsatisfied or disgruntled with their current partner, and therefore, have to find other outlets. The fact that BOTH Kiki and Howard cheated, it shows that they were both unsatisfied with their marriage in some way. I've had friends who are divorce children because on of their parents, or even both of their parents, where cheating. Usually, when both of their parents are cheating, a divorce quickly ensues, but I don't think I've seen a case when both parents fall back in love with each other.

It's not that I have a cynical or pessimistic view on marriage or love or whatever, I just think that the way Zadie Smith portrays it in the end is just not very realistic. I personally could not forgive a cheater, so I just can't imagine how both Howard and Kiki just fell back in love with each other.

lecture on economic policy

I attended Professor Meltzer’s lecture entitled “Lessons about economic policy from history.” Professor Meltzer has been a professor at Carnegie Mellon University for 53 years and his lecture was about the three volumes that he had written about the Federal Reserve and its role over the last 100 years.

The first part of the lecture was about why the Federal Reserve started. Previously, there had been no argument among the political parties in power that a central bank should exist but the real question was who would run it? The Federal Reserve (or Fed) was founded in 1917 by an act of Congress to act as an independent entity. However it wasn’t until 1935, when the regulations on the Fed were revised, that the bank was created as we know it today and then it wasn’t till 1951 that it made its presence known on a large scale. Initially, the agreement was that the Fed was free to raise interest rates and help finance government debt; however, it was not its job to advise Congress on any policies. This plan worked until President Johnson ran up the debt with his Great Society. Once the inflation that resulted from all the programs from the Great Society began, it became hard to stop it. Soon the major goal of the Fed became to keep high stability and high employment, which can’t really be done since with high employment comes high inflation. The public assumed that price instability was the only way to keep employment. As the government spent more money to help keep employment high, the Fed financed the debt by increasing its share of government securities. The debt became mainly financed by Japan and currently China. President Reagan had once said that “Deficits don’t matter” and professor Meltzer finished that phrase with “…as long as foreigners finance them.”

The second part of the lecture was about inflation. President Johnson didn’t care about inflation and President Nixon increased interest rates which was unusual for a nation during peacetime. For Nixon, the most important thing was to prevent unemployment. He blamed losing the 1960 election on the fact that there had been a recession during that time that had been orchestrated by the Fed (President Eisenhower was a firm believer in fiscal responsibility). During Nixon’s second election, he told Chairman Burns (who was also a personal friend of his) to “inflate” the economy to ensure that Nixon won. And then when President Cather came into office he also wanted inflation even though he had never before shown an inclination towards it. This change of heart was because the public had come to believe that inflation was the soundest economic policy. When this policy wasn’t enforced by the Chairman of the Fed (the bank is independent so the President has no power over it), some Democratic senators told Carter that he was following a “Republican” policy of unemployment and high interest rates. Thus Carter asked for credit controls, which he was allowed to do under the regulations. There was an immediate 10% interest rate decrease and it was the largest GDP decrease ever. Professor Meltzer claims that deflation hasn’t deterred growth and didn’t do any real harm, except for the deflation that was seen in the Great Depression.

Professor Meltzer then went on to state reasons why he feels why the current economic crisis occurred. In 1937, Fannie Mae was formed. Its main purpose was to buy and sell mortgagees to make them seem more like commodities and more debt. However, President Clinton wanted more low income people to own homes so he passed laws stating that people didn’t need a credit history or didn’t need to make a down payment in order to buy a house. So these people didn’t really have any assets other than their house. And the other point was about the phrase” too big to fail.” This term didn’t come into existence until the 1970’s when a large bank was about the fail and the government bailed it out stating that its collapse would cause too many negative ripples in the economy. After this, the world came to the agreement that banks had to hold more capital to cover losses. To bypass this, banks took the bad debt off the books and placed it into separate companies it hide it. Also, there isn’t an incentive for banks to play safe when Congress had a fund to bail banks out.

The current government is running high deficits. At this rate, by 2019 90% of this nation’s GDP will be deficit-paid.

Phipps

Attending Phipps today a new version of beauty entered my mind. I developed a new love for natural beauty and the creativity that mother nature has herself. Being able to create plants that resemble different animals and in different shapes and sizes defines beauty. I truly appreciate that I was able to visit Phipps to purely think and understand the message Zadie Smith was trying to send its readers. Being able to comprehend the concept of what true natural beauty is and how it should be appreciated and today I opened my eyes and saw it for the first time. Natural beauty is something that should be appreciated and understood.

Howard.

I hate Howard. Everything he does just makes him more and more into a sad, aging, confused, clueless man. He should be old enough to realize that it is not right to cheat on his wife with their mutual friend, let alone do it again with a girl who is the same age as his daughter. He should be old enough to realize that his wife is not the same woman that he married 30 years ago and that he must address the fact that the dynamic of their relationship changed. He should also, most importantly, be old enough to realize that mistakes cannot always be forgiven and things can't always work out the way he wants them to be just because he wishes it to be so.

However, his pathetic nature does spark a little sympathy for me. The final scene where the room melts away and Kiki is the only thing on his mind gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, he learned something from his mistakes and will be able to grow into the man and father and (maybe) husband that he should be. But the only part where this cluelessness breaks my heart is when he deals with his children. His love, however strange, is obviously there; he is fascinated with them as they continue to grow before his eyes, bewildered by the fact that they are independent, real people now that no longer need him for anything, except for the occasional twenty dollar bill. I feel like this sense of lost control could account for his inability to control his own actions. I love the passage where he wants to express some sort of intellectual knowledge to his son:

"He was having an odd paternal rush, a blood surge that was also about blood and was presently humming through Howard's expansive intelligence to find words that would more effectively express something like don't walk in front of cars take care and be good and dont hurt or be hurt and dont' live in a way that makes you feel dead and don't betray anybody or yourself and take care of what matters and please don't and please remember and make sure" "

This honestly really does make my heart break, because I wonder about my own parents and how they feel about the fact that I am growing up. I mean, I know it's a weird sensation for me to be able to go days at a time without talking to them, the fact that I went from being so reliant on them for everything, basically, to virtually being able to exist fully without them. I want Howard to know that even though this is true, his children love their weird, awkward British geeky dad. I feel like he doesn't know that, he sees their growing up as growing away from loving them and he is trying so hard to hold onto them, but he can't. I hope my parents know that they have taught me well, and in that, they have also taught me how to effectively love them. I wish Howard could have realized that in the novel, too.

Lecture on Evolutionary Psychology

I went to listen to Professor David Rakison talk about evolutionary psychology. I found it to be extraordinarily interesting and it got me really thinking of taking his class on the subject next spring. I thought that it was cool to see how our fears and actions are part of our genetic makeup and how we do things because of reasons from way back when. Going along with the theme of On Beauty, he touched on how skinny has not always been preferred. He also mapped out what men look for in women and what women look for in men. It was interesting that he discussed studies taken from around the world, in all sorts of cultures. No matter the living situation, many things are very similar in all places. I find it fascinating how everyday things like fears can be traced back to our birth. For example, he discussed how babies instinctively know that spiders are “scary” and they can actually pick out the shape of a spider. Many studies have proven the existence of evolutionary psychology and I would like to follow it as this become more well known.

More on Weight

“Why are there are no awards for the girl who starves herself through the Christmas period – refusing all sweetmeats, roasts and liqueurs offered to her – so that she might appear at the January formal in a backless dress and toeless shoes, although the temperature is near to freezing and the snow is heavy upon the ground? Howard, who wore a floor-length overcoat, gloves, leather shoes and a thick college scarf, stood by Emerson’s front gate and watched with real awe the mist of white flakes falling upon bare shoulders and hands, the clothed men holding their near-naked, decorative partners as together they stepped around puddles and snowdrifts like ballroom dancers on an assault course. They all looked like princesses – but what steel must lurk within!” – page 341

I really like this quote for many reasons. I think that it speaks to the idea that women put so much effort into looking good, even if just for one night. The fact that girls “starve” themselves to look like a princess is really saddening to me. I have always been the kind of girl to go against the norm because I like being my own person. This is not to say that I haven’t wanted to look like a princess for a special occasion, but I do not do it for the same reason as described here. These girls are so caught up on society’s interpretation of what is beautiful, not what makes them feel beauty. I think that everyone can find happiness in themselves with some confidence and people that they can count on, but I feel like many young girls these days do not have that. With the help of media, it is “common knowledge” that skinny is beautiful. I always like to see a television show, such as America’s Next Top Model, which tells young girls that it is alright to be something other than skinny. The show monitors the weight of the models to make sure that they are healthy and they even have overweight models which is refreshing.

Skinny is Beautiful?

I fell that people, especially people in modern day society, value body figure and looks extensively. People judge whether or not a person is beautiful base on his or her body figure and look. Today, people emphases more and more on being skinny and how being skinny is beautiful. But I think in On Beauty, Zaddie Smith is trying to suggest that being skinny is actually not as beautiful as what people might think. She also tries to suggest that beauty comes from a inner self rather than from your figure. Okay, first of all, being skinny is not beautiful. In the novel when Jerome and Kiki are in Levi's room, they find pictures of African American women with no clothes or little clothes on. These women have figures rather than being skinning, and Kiki makes a remark saying that at least they have meat. This almost shows that Zaddie Smith is criticizing society for emphasizing on the idea of being skinny. These women, although they are not skinny, they are still perceived to be "pornography" worthy. Although this is extremely degrading but it nevertheless reveals these women's beauties. Then Zaddie Smith is also trying to suggest that beauty comes from the innerself. At the end of the noel. Howard had finally see beauty in Kiki although she might be overweight and old. Compares to Claire and Victoria Kiki is what a society will consider to be less attractive but she is the true beauty Smith protrays. Kiki's beauty comes from her heart and her maturity. Victoria, who might be beautiful on the surface, is just a plastic and is superficial. In the novel, Victoria's personality is extremely ugly in comparison to Kiki's or even Zora's. She is immature and she wants attention. I also want to comment on her "relationship" with Howard. I just want to say that I am grossed out by the two, and it causes me to be extremely repulsive. I almost want to stop reading because of the relationship between the two. I feel bad for Carl and worse for Jerome. When he wanted to marry her at the beginning of the noel, I thought she is a decent girl, but now, i hate her.

I'm all over the place, here.

As I was finishing On Beauty, I was really surprised by how much action there was, especially towards the very end of the novel. When Kiki finds the painting under Levi's bed and begins interrogating him, I actually stopped reading and looked to see how much of the book was left; I was so surprised that, instead of the novel progressively wrapping up, so many more things happened.

I also found myself very conflicted towards the end as to whether I was routing for or against Howard and Kiki getting back together/resuming their relationship. Through most of the book, I think, I thought they should and generally wanted them to continue their relationship. Mistakes do happen, and in 30 years for Howard to have an affair for about 3 weeks, then completely terminate the relationship... it really doesn't seem that bad. I figured Howard was stupid, that he realized that he had risked losing his family and the woman who has supported him and been his best friend for over 30 years, and that he would have learned from this mistake. Not so, apparently. When Howard had sex with Vee, I absolutely could not believe how pathetic he was. I couldn't believe it was happening at all, really. I lost all possible respect I could have had for him and no longer wished for Kiki to forgive him.

But I also had a fairly strong reaction to Victoria Kipps, too. She had been flirty (whether intentional or unintentional had not been disclosed) throughout the novel, with Howard and just in general, really. I found her pathetic as well in the sex scene. It was also very evident just how naive she is. Everything she does--what she says, does, sounds she makes, etc,--all seem straight from a bad porno movie or something; this includes how she sends dirty pictures or herself to Howard (and also to Carl), and that she shows up to the hotel with Howard (obviously to have sex) in a ridiculous outfit consisting of corset, stockings, G-string, and garters. Who does that??? No one does that except in movies and in pornography. When she storms into Howard's office, though, I thought there was some hope. She says, "'I know you think,' she said, each word tear-inflected, making her hard to understand, 'that you ... know me. You don't know me. This,' she said and touched her face, her breasts, her hips, 'that's what you know. but you don't know me. And you were the one who wanted this-- that's all anybody ever...' She touched the same three placed. 'And so that's what I...'" (390). Besides sounding like an extremely angsty, dramatic teenager, I thought she had realized something big, something important: that because she is always so flirty and uses her looks so purposefully, people only want her for her looks, for her body-nothing more. Unfortunately, though, she goes on to send dirty emails to Carl and continues the same routine with him and thus perpetuates her vain, shallow cycle. She needs to be wanted, but even more than that, she needs to be had for some reason. At least Carl was closer to her age, I guess? Other than that, there really seems to be no bright side.

Also, on a completely random note, I loved the scene where Howard 'catches' (sees) Kiki attending one of Monty's lectures and immediately races home to wait for her, forcibly petting their dog Murdoch in an empty room in their empty house like some kind of crazed, deranged psychopath (like the bad guy in a bad movie), plotting, contemplating the confrontation.
"He went straight home and awaited his wife. In his rage, he sat on the couch holding Murdoch tightly on his lap, scheming upon the many ways he might open the coming conversation... It was all he could do not to leap from his seat and confront her in the most vulgar way. he listened to her footsteps. She passed the doorways of the living room ('Hey. You OK?') and kept walking. Howard internally combusted.
'Been at work?'
Kiki retraced her steps and stopped in the doorway. She was-like all long-married people- immediately alerted to trouble by a tone of voice.
'No... Afternoon off.'
'Have a nice time?'
Kiki stepped into the room. 'Howard, what's the problem here?'
'I think,' said Howard, releasing Murdoch, who had grown tired of being partially strangled, 'I would have been marginally- marginally- less surprised to see you at a meeting of...'
Here they began to speak at the same time.
'Howard, what is this? Oh, God-'
'...of the Klu Klux fucking Klan- no, actually, that would have made a bit more-'" (392).

And so their argument commences in full force. I really admire Smith's ability to use humor in the novel, even at seemingly inappropriate places. I found the beginning of the scene hilarious, but I also admire Smith's ability to transition from humor to serious content, as she does with the funny setup, then very serious fight, ending in Kiki collapsing in the couch, weeping. The whole scene ends with them having sex, which is a very interesting transition in and of itself.
Overall, I think the book was very well written, I enjoyed the humor as well as the beauty of some of the more serious passages, and I just really liked the book in general.

The Holy Virgin Mary-- Appropriateness of Art content

I went to hear a guest speaker, Dr. Richard Howells, last month. The topic he spoke on was Controversy, Art, and Power. I decided to go because the topic interests me and, due to this interest, I decided to write a paper for my Interp class (section: Art in Society) about appropriateness of the content of art, so I thought Dr. Howells might provide some useful information that I could use in my paper. I had never heard of him before, but Howells turned out to be from King’s College in London. I could tell he was very informed and his presentation went very well, and I did enjoy it. He discussed various examples (some more pertinent to England, others more pertinent to the US) of art—from literature to paintings, music, plays, and photographs—that was deemed inappropriate in one way or another. These pieces of art received various treatment; most of the art was ridiculed, some were confronted with hesitation or refusal to be displayed, and others were outright censored—some attempts were legal, others were via vandalism. Among the many examples (including a Sex Pistols performance, a novel entitled Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and the photograph “Piss Christ”) I chose “The Holy Virgin Mary” to use as a case study in my paper.

“The Holy Virgin Mary” is a painting by Chris Ofili in 1976. The piece to be displayed as part of an exhibit called “Sensation” at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999 (the exhibit was comprised of pieces done by young British artist, all from the Saatchi collection). The piece depicted “a black African Mary surrounded by images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of female genitalia cut from pornographic magazines, and elephant dung. These were formed into shapes reminiscent of the cherubim and seraphim commonly depicted in images of the Immaculate conception and the Assumption of Mary.” The (needless to say) unconventional portrayal lead to much controversy, including a lawsuit between mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In the end, the museum won and the painting was allowed to be shown in the exhibit. For some people, though, this was not a satisfactory outcome. A retired teacher by the name of Dennis Heiner (a 72 year old Christian man) defaced the painting by smuggling paint into the museum. He threw white paint onto Ofili’s work and “proceeded to smear the paint over the canvas.” The painting was able to be restored, however, so no lasting damage was done to the piece.

I was really intrigued by this and all the other examples that Dr. Howells provided. It’s really incredible to think of the lengths to which people will go when they feel offended. While I feel that art should not be censored and that artists should have the right to produce and display all of their art (regardless of its ‘appropriateness’), I also feel that people should have the right to not feel uncomfortable about what art they perceive. People cannot choose or control what offends them, they are simply offended. I think, then, that perhaps people should have proper warning before viewing an art piece that may be ‘inappropriate.’ This can better be accomplished if art pieces are displayed in proper contexts, such as in museums and galleries as opposed to places where passersby may unintentionally view the piece (Ron English, for example, illegally apprehends billboards and displays his controversial art in places where any person walking or driving by can see them). In the case of “The Holy Virgin Mary,” I believe that Ofili had the right to produce the piece and that the piece had a right to be displayed in a museum and that no wrong was done, especially because the piece was displayed in an exhibit entitled “Sensation.” Obviously the works in an exhibit, so accurately named, would likely cause some people to feel uncomfortable, so they were given a sufficient amount of warning before viewing the piece (or any of the other works therein).

Wonder Boys What A Wonder!!!!

Wonder Boys is One of my favorite movies. My father first introduced it to me when I was 15 years old and I have been watching it with him since then. Yet reading the book had never crossed my mind. I felt the movie was so well made i didnt undersand how reading the book could possibly compare or even be better. Yet here I am saying by reading the book the movie became ten times better. Understanding the concepts and other underlying features that the director tried top pull from the book but wasnt as clear before started to make sence. The story flowed so much more and it was as if the book just came to life in front of me. So I thank Professor Newman for providing an option to read this book becuase it just made one fo my favorite movies come alive to another level.

Some thoughts on the books

Some of the books we have read in this class are a little less than classic literature (I am thinking of Admission here), but I think that they have all given us some insight into the college experience that we might not have had otherwise as well as serving to facilitate discussion about our own experiences. Initially, I was a little disappointed that only one or two of the books focused on college through the perspective of the student, but I think I wouldn't have gotten as much out of this class if they had. I think that reading about professors has made them more approachable for me and reading Admission (soap opera that it was) gave us a chance to talk about the process of choosing a college, and how we all wound up here. I think that it was OK not to read about other students, but I would have liked to have at least one contemporary experience to compare mine to more directly.

I thought that the books were all readable and I didn't have trouble understanding them. My favorite book was The Professor's House. This book probably had the least to do with the actual college experience, but it was really easy to read and thought provoking which made it entertaining for me. I tend to enjoy books that focus on characters, which is probably another reason why The Professor's House appeals to me.

I also really liked Wonder Boys. The whole book is just so fast-paced and Chabon dedicated a lot of effort to documenting the change in Grady's life. The book made me think about what it means to be a writer and what it means to work in college education. I think the view that we get of Grady also helped me think about professors as people outside of their work and their lecture halls. I still don't think that my professors go out and smoke pot, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if they had. On Beauty sort of reinforces that idea when we have this picture of the professors both cheating on their spouses and squabbling over intellectual issues and university politics. I guess I sort of had this idea, kind of like Zora did, that professors are sort of this weird intellectual breed of people that read books all the time and always thought high spotless thoughts that they passed along to their students, or helped students figure out for themselves. It's a more common delusion that people have about teachers than you might think.

Apart from challenging my conceptions about professors I think I got a more round view of what it means to be a Carnegie Mellon student by being in this class. We are all running in sort of different circles and It is nice to see those come together in a way that reflects the different experiences individual students are having, and how really very similar they are, and how our different backgrounds have shaped our experiences.

Character Likability in On Beauty

I'm really facinated by the debate over whether or not we ought to like the characters to read about in fiction and how likability functions as a device. If anyone's seen South Pacific they'll know what I mean (Since Nellie Forbush is so gosh-darn cheery and lovable, we do a double-take when she turns out to be uber racist and absurdly ignorant...if she had been nasty, we would have just written her off as a bad guy). So who in On Beauty do we like and how does that effect how we read the book? Who do we dislike and what effect does that have? And not to suggest for a second that there aren't shade of gray, and different kinds of liking. I love reading about Levi, in some ways he reminds me of my kid brother (I'm with Lisa on the this-book-makes-me-a-wee-bit-sibling-missing thing) and I think some of his dialogue is hilarious. But I think if we really met, we wouldn't have much to talk about. Opposite with Kiki, who after a while is kind of just singing the same old song, but seems like the kind of person you'd love to have in your life. Zora annoys me, but I see a little bit of myself there, too (ugh, hopefully not too much), and must have some sympathy for her because I hate Vee right along side her. In fact, all the Kippses get on my nerves, although I have to point out Smith is a master at painting the pitch perfect annoying family. I like Jerome, he's like that little puppy in the corner, how can you not like him. Claire, again, and example of pitch perfect annoying (obviously a different kind of annoying) and yet, there are moments you genuinely pity her (or at least, I do). And then there's Howard. I don't even know what to do with Howard.

On Family.

I spend most of the time reading this book wishing that Howard wasn't so stupid, and wishing that Kiki could realize the best path she should take in terms of getting over the pain of what her husband has done, whether this be leaving him or forgiving him. In fact, a good portion of the book chooses to focus on marital relationships, successful and not, and lust and love and the kinds of relationships that can be fleeting, to some extent; as binding as relationships and marriage are, they can still fizzle; even the 30 years that Howard and Kiki spent building a particularly strong and happy life together came crumbling due to mistakes that one of them made. In this way, there is no absolute permanence that romantic love can promise, as love is funny and cruel sometimes, I guess, in that way.


But what Zadie Smith seems to be subtly stressing is the importance of your own family, the idea that blood is thicker than water. Although the Belsey siblings are not at all alike or even that close, they seem to have an unspoken love and dependence on each other. Reading this makes me miss my brother, despite the fact that we are not always that close or similar; we still have the bond of the experience of growing up in the same exact home and this produces a certain closeness that will exist, whether I like it or not. Smith really captures this in the scene in the coffee shop where they are happen to meet up with each other and exemplifies the permanence of the sibling relationship that cannot be broken. She explains that they were so comfortable with each other, despite their differences, since, to each other, “They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away”. I guess it’s weird to admit, but my brother is probably the closest and longest relationship I’ll ever have. But it’s nice, at the same time, because you never know what will happen in terms of who my friends will be or if I will break up with the love of my life, and they say you can’t choose your family, which can be frustrating sometimes, but in the long run, I always know that he will be there.

And while Smith says that “a five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you”, the fact that the weeds are growing does not mean that the garden is dead. I see this in the relationship between Zora and Jerome, when they go to the party together in the end of the novel. Although they do not have much to say to each other, the things they choose to say are exactly what they each need to hear; they are both hurting but at least they can lean on each other to bear it. When siblings aren’t being the source of your pain, the undeniable love between them can be just what you need to alleviate it.

Overweight

I have been unconsciously thinking about KiKi's weight throughout the novel. While for Kiki to be so overweight and to be three hundred pounds might be a shock to some of the readers, it did not come as big of a shock to me. When I first starting reading the novel, I pictured Kiki to be a slim beautiful dark skinned lady who sits with her back straight and her hand neatly above her knees. But as I read on, I found out that I was wrong. Well, then what gave me the impression that she is beautiful and slim? Might it be that because I am prejudice? Might it be that I have always expected female fictional character to be slim and picture perfect? I do not know, and this got me thinking. I think for many authors, this might be the case. Having beautiful female protagonist with a nice body might be the case. However, this is not the case for Zadie Smith. As a reader who likes to analysis everything, I naturally think that for Zadie Smith have portrayed Kiki to be this overweight there has to be a reason. I think the reason might be that Kiki's weight represents the weight that she is carrying on her shoulder. She has to carry the weight of being a African American wife with a white husband living in a white college town. She has to carry the weight of being less intellectual as her husband and his friends. She has to carry the weight of her husband cheating on her. Kiki is a strong woman. Regardless of all the weight that she is carrying with her, she manages to holdup a whole entire family. She manages to keep the family together and raise three strong children. She manages to stay-up while the world tries to pull her down.

I think with the title On Beauty, it fits perfectly with Kiki. Kiki might not be beautiful, but her action, her heart, her passion is very beautiful. Kiki is not as pretty or as slim as Claire, but to me, Kiki is much mre beautiful than Claire. Kiki manages to forget while Claire is still bitter and jealous. Claire gives me the impression of someone who is intellectual, but yet conceded. (Maybe conceded is too strong of a adjective). But, Kiki is the true beauty.