Everything Is Illuminated and Judaism

"Everything Is Illuminated," by Jonathan Safron Foer is a book about a Jew coming of age and Learning his identity as a Jew. I can relate to this in many ways. First, I am Jewish, just like Jonothan and I have to discover who I am as a Jew. Also, my family was uprooted form Europe by oppresion and came to America. Throughout the book, Jonothan goes through the journey of identifying himself as a jew. All Jews go through this same journey including myself. Like Jonothan, I have my doubts about god. But overall, because he's such a Jew, I can identify with Joseph. Although my family had to leave Russia because of the depretion, no direct family of mine was in the Holocaust. This book took me through the cruel curiosity being a descendent of a Holocaust victim would be. It makes me pity the main character. It also reminds me that my family was lucky. All in all, being Jewish is important to both Jonathan and me. So, it helped me relate with him.

Everything Is Illuminated: Coming of Age

     Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safron Foer features a character named Jonathan Safron Foer who expiriences the change of innocence to experience throughout his journey.  His journey is to find the town his descendants lived in.  He goes through the journey with a funny Ukrainian, his tour guide Alex. He may not be a teen in the book, but he's certainly still coming of age.  Alex leads him through weird and new circumstances and toughens as well as opens him up through experience.  Also, Jonathan learns to be misunderstood, which helps define himself as a man.

     At first Foer was unhappy and generally shocked about the gross car and Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.  I found him sort of snobby.  However, later he accepted these quarks as part of the adventure.  He turned into a nicer guy by hanging around rougher, stranger conditions.

     Jonathan learns to be proud of who he is.  At the begining, he seems held back and shy.  I think that people misunderstanding his culture made him proud of who he was.  For example, he fought hard explaining why and how he was a vegetarian to Alex.  He was not embarrassed, it was part of him.

     I am just about half way done with this book and I really like it.  Although it can be weird and at times extremely boring or confusing, its a very interesting book.  I look forward to reading the rest.

Facebook Buys Instagram: Essay

"Facebook to Buy Photo-Sharing Service Instagram for $1 Billion"  
By Jenna Wortham
New York Times


Essay Question: What is the purpose of this article and why is it important?


     The article, "Facebook to Buy Photo-Sharing Service Instagram for $1 Billion" By Jenna Wortham is important because it explains why Facebook is buying Instagram, a decision that is important to millions and describes the inspiring story of the shoot up company, Instagram.  It is about the purchase of Instagram by Facebook.


     This story is about something that millions of people care about, so this subject matter is more than just social networking.  As the article states, "(Instigram) has 30 million users who upload more than five million photos a day, even though it was available for only Apple devices."  This shows that Instagram is part of tons of people's daily lives and therefore, the decision and the coverage was important.  This article also covered many Instagram users reactions to the purchase.  Wortham wrote that many Instagram users "lamented the loss of what they saw as an alternative to Facebook and threatened to delete their accounts."  This shows that the article covered a crucial conflict in the social networking world.  


     Wortham describes the quite impressive and fast rise to the top of Instagram.  According to the article, the company was founded less than two years ago and started off with, "Just four employees, including its two co-founders."  This rise to the top is an example of the american dream, the type of story that can inspire others to pursue their dreams.


     I learned from this article the story of a cool start up and how much people care about it.  This article inspires me and makes me proud to be an American.  We have these two new companies, both started by  people in their twenties making a ton of money because of creativity, intelligence and timing.  So, this article is important not just because it inspires, or effects people's lives, but because it describes the bigger picture of the American dream.
     

Plagiarism

     The student clearly plagiarized in their blog post.  This is their fault, wrong and if unintentional, avoidable.  

     The student is at fault for plagiarizing.  They copied someone's words and pasted, without quoting or giving credit to the original author.  Whether they meant to or not, it is wrong.  An example of their plagiarism is that they copied two full paragraph's of the article "A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings": "Although the features are exaggerated, this is a scene we can all relate to, and also one that most individuals feel comfortable and at ease with. This sky keeps the viewer's eyes moving about the painting, following the curves and creating a visual dot to dot with the stars. This movement keeps the onlooker involved in the painting while the other factors take hold. Below the rolling hills of the horizon lies a small town. There is a peaceful essence flowing from the structures. Perhaps the cool dark colors and the fiery windows spark memories of our own warm childhood years filled with imagination of what exists in the night and dark starry skies. The center point of the town is the tall steeple of the church, reigning largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple casts down a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of size and seclusion."  This is a huge amount of text that was clearly just copied and pasted.  The student again is in the wrong.

     The student could have avoided plagiarism very easily.  They could have used a quote and credited the source.  They could have also paraphrased the source and granted it credit.  Lastly, they could have used specific details from the source and paraphrased them.  The student could have written something like;  "According to the article, "A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings," "Although the features are exaggerated, this is a scene we can all relate to."  This way, the source is quoted and credited.  

    The student committed a crime by plagiarizing.  It's easy to avoid plagiarizing.  I will use these tools to help me keep avoiding plagiarizing in the future.

Good Blogs

     There were a lot of good 813 blog posts on Ms. Galang's blog, but some of my favorites were Gabby's and George's.  Gabby's response, "Glass Shatters," is about drug addiction in the book Glass and George's post is called "Irony in Romeo and Juliet" and as you might guess is about just that.  These responses are both different, but they are both very good.

     "Glass Shatters" is good because of its strong narrative, and its use of a lot of good key text evidence and good explanations.  In both body paragraph's she used a quote.  What really stood out though was that for both quotes she elaborated very well.  She did this so well, that I understood the quote even though I had not read the book.  For example, following a long quote that confused me at first she wrote, "What Kristina is making clear is that her real self is the smallest part and she is worried about getting caught and she thinks that going back to the “monster” which is meth  is stupid, but Bree doesn’t really care about anything, but when she’s high Bree is the dominant voice that Kristina has so she doesn’t really care about getting caught all she wants to do is enjoy what’s going to end up ruining Kristinas life."  This shows that Gabby helped the reader understand the importance of the quote because she told the backstory and summarized the quote, while telling the meaning of the quote in the book.  Gabby did a good job of incorporating text evidence and had a distinct voice in her writing.

    George's post made Romeo and Juliet, a very difficult text to get through quite interesting.  His post about the irony was very easy to read because of its good structure.  It is 5 paragraphs, with an intro, 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion.  I also like that George's conclusion and introduction are to the point and short.  George's entry was good mostly because of the way he structured it.

    These blogs inspire me to improve my posts in various ways.  Most importantly though, I will use a lot of quotes like Gabby and thoroughly explain them and structure my responses like George's response.

Much Ado About Nothing

Dear Friend,


     I got to see the off-broadway production Much Ado About Nothing.  The play wasn't too long and it was pretty enjoyable.  One thing that I really liked was the use of Jazz music and the roles of the musicians in the play.  They used a lot of dramatic, hyperbolic actions in the play.  The theme for the play is to take life as it comes.


     The use of jazz music goes along very well with the theme of the play.  The theme is just to enjoy life because all of this crazy stuff happens, but in the end, not much changes from the original set of events.  The jazz music presents that fun theme.  This is because of all of the often randomness of jazz, but it still sounds sweet.


     The play has a lot of intentional exaggerations.  The two most common are when the characters act like bulls when the word comes up and when Don Pedro throws down the table in anger.  Don Pedro's action is funny and gives the audience a good feel for his character and the amount of anger he has.  This intentional overacting makes the play sort of goofy and fun.  


    Overall, I recommend seeing this play.  It was only 90 minutes and it was well acted.  I am very happy we got to go there on a school trip.  

Sincerely,

Joshua Waldman

Capulet Drama

     We've been reading Romeo and Juliet for quite some time and what I find most interesting is the conflicts and issues that are in the Capulet House.  These issues came to front in scene 3 or act 1.  The issues of marriage, womens rights, and the idea of marriage without even really knowing a person.


     What is interesting is that Juliet's father was against the marraige with Paris and Lady Capulet was very strongly for it.  Getting married at my age seems odd, and especially to someone I didn't know.  I would think that Lady Capulet would understand that, but she didn't.  Juliet's dad was understanding and wanted to protect his daughter as I most certainly would try to.  Lady Capulet said that she was married and raised Juliet when she was even younger then Juliet.  This shows just how different things were for women then.  Their jobs were basically to raise their children, cook and clean.  This is why the idea seems inconceivable to me but would make sense at the time the play was written.


     Another thing that is weird is that it's not clear that Juliet even knew Paris when he approached her father and asked if he could marry her.  So, essentially, he wanted to marry her because of her looks and wealth.  Another weird thing is that Lady Capulet wanted her to get married to him, both so that she would grow up and have a family and because he was a man of such power and money.  The idea of marriage has also seemed to have changed over the years.  Less people get married because of economics and almost all people at the very least know the person they are marrying.  


     All in all, scene 3 shows how much things have changed.  This makes the play interesting because it shows the social elements of the times.  However, many of the same personalities and characters lived then and now. 

Romeo and Juliet

Dear Friend,
    
     The first scene of Romeo and Juliet does an amazing job of presenting the two huge themes in the play.  Those themes are love and mindless grudges.  My read has been interesting so far.

   There are many great, interesting lines in this first scene. One that I really liked was, "I have lost myself.  I am not here."  Even though this line is not famous or anything, for some reason, I really like this line.  I like that it uses old words, but needs no translation.  The second sentence is a metaphor.  Even though it's simple, it represents so much more.  It means he is so in love that the love and the stress is the only place Romeo is.  Its a great line, which somehow is both simple and complex.

     This is not my first time reading Shakespeare.  I have already read three of his plays and preformed in one of them, Twelfth Night.  Shakespeare can be a struggle, but i find once I get it, it's great.  So far, this play has been a slow read, but not a boring one.  I suggest reading this, but, my favorite Shakespeare so far is Twelfth Night.

     I am not entirely into Romeo and Juliet, but I like it.  I wonder if it will become a faster read.  Its a hard read because of the constant vocabulary checking.  I don't really have questions about this play, but again, I recommend Romeo and Juliet to you.

Harlem

    Harlem captures the essence of dreams and progress in just a few great short lines.  This poem was written when the future state and equality of African Americans was unknown.  Its cool that the poem is called harlem because that is the only line that directly talks about African Americans.  The rest of the poem is about the African American movement, but is talking about something much bigger.  This much broader idea is that if you don't follow through on your dreams, they will disappear.

    When Hughes wrote most of his poems, African Americans were being oppressed throughout the United States.  However, as this poem shows, there was prospect and hope for a better life.  The first line, "What happens to a dream deferred?" shows that black people had dreams but were not acting on it.  The rest of the poem just describes different ways that the dream is destroyed.  This describes the political scene in terms of race at the time.

     It was an interesting choice to name the poem Harlem.  I think he named it Harlem to show that he was talking about Harlem.  This poem is about Harlem because Harlem was the cultural center for Black people in America.  At that point in history, the vast majority of Black people's dreams were drying up and not being fulfilled.  However, Hughes also shows the excitement and tension and want at that time in the Black community.  This is shown by the last line of the poem, "Or does it explode?"  This shows how full of energy and frustrated the community was in a beautiful way.

     The last word of the poem somehow seems to be automatically yelled.  It is almost as if there's a stage direction there.  I think this is because the rest of the poem and the start of the line, "Or does it..." builds up to it.  And the last word, "Explode," seems to be the loudest by far in the poem.  I think Hughes does this on purpose.  Either way, it creates a very rhythmic reading of the poem.

     All in all, Harlem is a great and simple poem.  Somehow, without actually mentioning race, it describes the issues as well as any poem of the time.  It is has great rhythm and is quite moving.   It describes the mood and frustrations of African Americans.  However, it's also relatable to everyone.  It is one of my favorite poems.

A Dream

By Joshua Waldman

A boy of three looks up at me with eyes

of brown and shining blond tresses with curls.

And what he wants is clear to me; here lies

Some gifts which bear his name upon their twirls

And then I see I look like him; the boy

Who looks at me: I see the boy is me

He waves his arms I see, perhaps to qtoy

With me.  Or he yet might just wave with glee.

And so I wave to him as he had done

And now it’s clear that I am not the one

Who stands waving to him like he has won

The game monopoly, of quite good fun.

I wake with sunshine pouring in my room

And sun rays shine without a sense of gloom.

America

What is America?

America is

Long shifts

Three jobs

Free

Hard

Equal

Bells ringing.

I hear no bells ring today.

Thirteen million

who are seeking work

must sit at home today

waiting for those bells to ring.

Waiting for their shift to start

Waiting to work three jobs 

to send their kid to college.

Today I see Southern Blacks 

loosing their right to vote through the 

state legislatures who are supposed to protect them.  

America is a land of 

the strongest.

America lies broken,

silent bells,

foreclosed houses

homeless shelters flooded with people.

Let us ring these bells today.

Let my generation break out of the sins

of Fanny May and Freddy Mack.

And let us move forward and vote out the bigots

in state legislatures and even

in Congress today.

America is standing still.

Let us ring those bells

Get back to work.

Invent.

Or perhaps,

they will ring 

forever no more.

Junkyard

I walk down and see

four hundred fords in front of me.

But these fine cars have not been used

only mused

upon and turned away.

Today not many cars sell

nor did they 

then, when 

one third of americans 

sat unemployed.

In the horizon though

I see hope

And my hope lies not in the hands of a pope.

My hope lies in the strong American hands who built those cars.

Who work every day

or 

Seek it every day.

I see hope in the horizon today too.

The trees will start to blossom after this cold cold winter.

Rise

What happens if we give up?

What happens if we stop doing applications every day.

What if we simply blame others.

Fat-cats.

The 1%.

Congress.

But we ourselves are 

just as much to blame

if we we sit and complain.

Lets rise up as a nation,

as a people

like the sun.

Migrant Mother

(http://walkerevans.florencegriswoldmuseum.org/gallery/gallery.php5?id=0)  

   

      I am deeply moved by much of Walker Evans' work and especially this photo.  I really like his Depression work.  What I love about his photos during the depression is the stories and hardships that he managed to show with a snap.  He found a way to show individuals' stories at the same time as showing what the real America was at that time.  He showed suffering in his photos, but he also showed hope.  I think he was the best photographer in American History.  He documented America during the depression and got this documentation printed and showed to the public and the leaders as much as any journalist could have.  

(Walker Evans-Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Evans was born in St. Louis in 1903 and he died in New Haven, Connecticut in 1975.  He grew up in Kenilworth, Illinois.  He was a bad student and dropped out of Williams College. He had a few unsuccessful careers before he went into photography. Through his work, he became famous and was a very acknowledged photographer.  He became a professor at Yale University for photography and an Associate Editor at Fortune Magazine.

(http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm)

     

     The photo above was taken in 1935 by Evans.  It was of an auto junk yard in Pennsylvania.  The image looks like just part of the junk yard, perhaps to show the vastness of the junk yard.  There are also a few trees in the background.  This shows the rural element of the photo.  It is clearly a cloudy and possibly misty day that the photo was taken.  Much of the photo is just of open field.  

     This photo is moving to me for many reasons.  First, it is a clear and brilliant symbol of the economic hardships that my family and all of the families of the United States and much of the world went through in the 1930s.  It also connects back to today, with lots and lots of bankrupted businesses and foreclosed houses, our country is filled with more and more "junkyards" than for a long time, maybe even since the Depression.  Even though this photo has no people in it, it still tells the story and suffrage of people.  I think, however, that this photo displays hope.  The field and trees in the background show future and somewhere to go.  This is a meaningful, dark, photo, but the life in the background inspires me as well.  

     After looking through albums upon albums and reading a book of Walker Evans' work, it made me want to travel around the country like he did.  He showed the rough times in America.  However, his photos also showed patriotism, the vastness and the beauty of America.  

Sources Cited

Department of Photographs. "Walker Evans (1903–1975)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm (October 2004)

"Walker Evans." 2012. Biography.com 02 Feb 2012, 09:59 http://www.biography.com/people/walker-evans-9289854

"Walker Evans : Biography." Spartacus Educational. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAPevansW.htm>.

Martin Luther King

     Martin Luther King day was on  monday.  So, I have been reading a lot of his speeches and other things he wrote.  Something that touched me was his letter from a birmingham jail.  What was so inspiring was the compassion he showed for others, while he himself was in jail fighting for the vary people he was writing the letter for.


     King showed not only how much he cared, but his writing was also really moving.  I think that the best line of the letter was, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."  This shows how much he cared about America and about equality.  It also shows his view of his purpose on the world.  He would only be content with his life if his race was treated with the fairness and respect that he fought for.


     Martin Luther King was not anti-police or against the government.  He was for justice.  He was against however, the way that racists had manipulated the justice system to make racism law and a part of life in the South.  As he said, "Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and that when they fail to do this they become dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress."  This shows that he was actually more pro 'justice' and policing than those who arrested him.  


     MLK day has become just a day off in America.  We need to make it more about what MLK stood for.  When Black votes are being taken away all around the country, we need to live up to the legacy of the greatest activist in American History.  He is no Santa as he has been portrayed.  He was a man who went into dangerous situations intentionally for the betterment of a people.  He may not have had the best family life, but there is nobody who I respect more.  

Martin Luther King Jr. Letter From a Birmingham Jail

A Change of Feelings

     I hate to contradict myself, but in this case I really have to.  In my last post, I was really negative about the main character.  I owe an apology to Kyle.  He has made me respect him all the more.

     Kyle is finally growing up, and being responsible.  He was honest to his friend Joey and coughed up the truth.  This truth was about the rape charge.  He is starting to come to terms with it.  He's being a good friend to Joey and helping him deal with it even though Kyle got the short end of the stick and was the most innocent of the guys in the situation.  He has clearly learned and grown as a person.

     I also feel that his relationship with his father has improved.  He has not told his dad of the pickle he is in, but he feels bad about joining the corporate law firm.  I think that by the end of the book, he will share his situation with his father.

     All in all, I'm starting to like Kyle more and more.  I'm really enjoying the book too.  I can't wait to read more.

Respect

     Have you ever found yourself loosing respect for the protagonist in your book?  That's exactly what I am experiencing in reading The Associate by John Grisham.  I think the main character, Kyle is becoming self centered and immoral.  Kyle cares not for those who he's harmed, but for how it will affect his life.  He also threw away all that he had learned from his mentor, his father, because of a threat to his career.

     Kyle cares a lot about his career and his future.  I think he cares too much.  Kyle was an accomplice  to a rape.  He was in college and drunk, he didn't do anything, but he didn't stop his frat-mates.  The police dismissed this charge.  Years later, when the scenario put his career on the line, all he was thinking was that nothing happened, even though, I think he knew something did happen.  He did not once in the situation feel bad.  He thought about the impact on his life, not how the rape affected the victim.

     Kyle has a very strong relationship with his father.  He became a lawyer just like his father.  However, his father hated corporate law firms.  Kyle was threatened and instead of showing courage, he chose to follow what his threateners wanted which was to join the biggest corporate law firm.  This showed a lack of courage.

     All in all, Kyle is a person who I do not respect.  However, I think he will become a person that I do. Or at least I hope so.  I am pretty early in the book, and I predict that Kyle will become a good man.