Dexter

       When I get interested in a television show, it’s hard for me to stay away. I will start on episode one and go straight through every episode as far as the show has currently gone. I have done this for multiple shows, including Entourage, The Simpsons (ten out of twenty-four seasons so far), Community, Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, American Horror Story and Mad Men. However, none of these can match my obsession with the show Dexter. Summer before my freshman year here at TCU, my brother told me about this show he watched that he was hooked on. So I decided to check it out. I didn’t realize how much my social life would drop after I began the show. I watched the first three seasons of the show, a total of thirty-six hours of television, in the first month of school. Yes, there were probably other things I could have done with that time. But... I regret nothing.

       The main reason I love the show so much is because the characterizations of each person on the show are so definite. The show follows Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro Police Department. When he was three years old, he witnessed his mother murdered and sat in her blood for two days before he was found. Ever since then, he has had a “dark passenger” that causes him to need to hurt and kill. As a teenager, his adopted father, Harry, discovered this badness in Dexter and gave him a code-- a specific way about executing his kills and deciding who his victims would be-- to live by in order to satisfy this need but keep himself from getting caught. From then on, Dexter would only seek out murderers not convicted or people who he believed deserved to die, as his victims. He becomes a vigilante.

       With that said, Dexter is not Batman. He is a regular human being who has extremely severe subconscious problems that cause an addiction. But yes, Dexter is a serial killer that works at the police department. The overall explanation of the show sounds dumb and too fictitious to ever work. However, what makes Dexter such a sensational show is how flawlessly it seems to bring this odd character to life, and how even with Dexter’s dark tendencies, we are always able to connect and sympathize with him. Obviously, we are not serial killers. But the overall themes of the importance of family, our ability or inability to repress our emotions, loneliness, fear, insecurity, personal vs. professional lives and where they cross, and many more allow us to follow Dexter’s complicated life and be entertained while relating certain aspects of the characters’ lives to our own. In no way does the show display Dexter as the good guy for killing these people. In fact, Dexter states multiple times that if he could just stop his addiction, he could live a safer, happier life. However, he can’t get rid of his dark passenger and must follow the code to keep himself from getting caught.

       The shows supporting characters, which includes Dexter’s sister from the adopted family, Debra, who works as a detective at Miami Metro, are also incredible and help create a believable world surrounding Dexter’s life. The show follows Dexter as he deals with the suspicions of coworkers, keeping his secrets, discovering other serial killers, evading arrest or death, starting a family while keeping his secrets, and most importantly, the consequences of having this dark passenger. If you have not ever seen the show, you should at least watch the first episode. However, I will warn you now, it is extremely addicting.

Cross-Country Snow: Male Bonding and Obligations

       Cross-Country Snow has a way of displaying the way that men bond in its truest form, as well as dealing with the choices we all face in life and which path we should take. This story starts with Nick and George getting off a ski lift and skiing down a mountain in the Swiss Alps together. As soon as they get to the bottom, they hike over to an inn to get a drink. They sit inside the inn and drink and talk about life for awhile before getting up, putting their skis back on, and skiing back home.

       One of the reasons I like this story so much is because it displays how many friendships of men are formed-- through shared experiences. While there is definitely some grey area in between, I do believe that men and other men become friends in different ways than women become friends with women. When I think of my best friends-- and this is how many would describe their best friends-- they are the people that have been with me through thick and thin, who have had fun with me, who have helped me through problems, who have experienced amazing things with me. When I think of how some women bond, I think of them talking to each other, getting to know each other, understanding each other and being there for each other when one needs to talk. The skiing used in this story is a perfect representation of how I have bonded with my best friends. It is the unspoken things. We don’t need to talk about how awesome something was, we don’t need to try to explain it, we don’t need to spill our feelings about it, we just experience it, and once you have that shared experience with someone, you are bonded. Nick and George both know the feeling that each gets skiing down those slopes. It does not need to be explained; it is an unspoken bond they feel. This is good male bonding at its best.

       The other reason I liked this story is because of the relatable situation Nick and George face in the tavern. Let’s look at the big picture. Both men are in a tavern in the Swiss Alps, away from the rest of the world and from any worldly problems. However, they have things waiting for them back in the real world. George “got to get educated;” he has to leave that evening on a train to take him back to school. Nick is going to have a baby with Helen, and does not seem too excited to return. In fact, both don’t seem too keen on returning to their normal lives and responsibilities. As George says, “Gee, Mike, don’t you wish we could just bum together?” 

       Both would much rather stay in Europe and just ski. However, they both have obligations to fulfill. George has made a commitment to get an education and is determined to complete that. And as much as Nick doesn’t seem to want to go back to the wife of his child, he must. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Many times in life we are faced with a choice: do what we want to do, or do what we believe is the right thing to do. And I truly believe it is at these moments that our character is tested the most and eventually determined. Nick and George both decide to do what they believe is the right thing to do, and to ignore what they want to do, to stay and ski. Through this, they both grow as men. Being a man does not mean not doing what you want. Rather, it means taking responsibility and following through on obligations.

The Three Day Blow: Real and Relatable

       The Three Day Blow, one of Ernest Hemingway’s stories of the life of his fictional character Nick Adams, was one of my favorite stories of the year because of how relatable and real it was. The story follows directly after The End of Something, in which Nick ends the relationship with his girlfriend, Marjorie, because “it isn’t fun anymore.” In the new story, Nick arrives at Bill’s house, who met up with him right after the break-up, and they sit and talk for awhile about different subjects and drink some Scotch and whiskey. Eventually, Bill brings up Marjorie and Nick begins having second thoughts about the break-up, but is comforted by the thought that he could always go back if he wanted to.

       One of the reasons I loved this story so much was because how real it seemed. At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that Nick Adams was a fictional character of Hemingway’s imagination. However, Nick feels as real as one of my friends. One of the reasons the whole atmosphere of this story feels so real is because of the language of the scene. It is not emphasized by huge descriptive words, but rather states that we are in Bill’s cottage and leaves the rest for our imagination to fill. Sometimes, I enjoy knowing exactly what the author had in mind when he/she was thinking of a setting, and therefore descriptive words about the area are needed to place me in that exact environment. However, in this instance, the conversation between Bill and Nick was more important than knowing exactly where they were when they were talking.

       Another factor that helped the realism of this story was the subject of conversation between the two men. They start with small talk about the Cardinals, then which author is better between Chesterton and Walpole, then fishing, the whole time continuing the drink more and more whiskey and Scotch. What is the point of having this small talk before getting to the main point of conversation which is obviously Nick’s breakup with Marjorie? Personally (and I’m sure this isn’t what a lot of scholars would argue), it added to the reality of the scene. When a friend comes over to my room, I don’t immediately divulge into whatever important topic we might have to talk about, especially if he has just broken up with his girlfriend. Our conversation might go something like this:

Me: “Hey man, what’s up?

Friend: “Hey, not much, just seeing what you’re up to.”

M: “Oh nice, well I was gonna take a break from studying. You wanna play Halo?”

F: “For sure. I need me some good Haloing right now.”

M: “Did you see that Broncos game?? Tebow is the MAN!”

F: “Maaaan, that was bull. He’s so overrated. Just wait until he stops getting lucky and the Broncos won’t win another game. I’ll bet you money.”

M: “Pshhhhh, whatever. You know they’re a force to be reckoned with now.”

F: “No way. What book are you reading in Lit and Civ now?”

M: “Nick Adams Stories. They’re pretty good. I like Hemingway. He’s to the point and easy to read and I like his subtlety.”

F: “Oh yeah I read a few of those in high school. He’s okay. I like John Steinbeck better though for sure. The Grapes of Wrath was so good.”

M: “What! That’s what I read if I couldn’t get to sleep. It’s so boring.”

F: “Agree to disagree, man.”

M: “Okay okay... Anyway man, I heard you and that girl broke up.”

       I would not immediately bring up the conversation about the girlfriend. I would let him get comfortable, small talk with him, relax for a little bit before getting into anything serious. I believe Hemingway created this dialogue about the Cardinals and favorite authors in order to add to the realism of the scene.

       Nick mentioned at one point that Marjorie’s mother thought they were engaged at one point. Obviously, this relationship was not one of a fleeting nature. Anyone who has been in a lengthy relationship that has not worked out can relate to Nick in this situation just after breaking up with Marjorie. While he is not enjoying the relationship anymore, this is the woman he has been with for however long and has gotten close to; no matter what, he is bound to have feeling drawing him back, making him second guess his decision.

       There is a funny quote that I’ve heard multiple times that the only honest people in the world are children and drunk people. While this is obviously not entirely true, there is at least some inflection in it. Children do not know any better, don’t process the consequences and don’t think that it might be wrong to be completely honest at a given time. On the other side, being intoxicated has a way of loosening people up and allowing them to act in a more primal, childlike way without thinking before speaking. I think that the whiskey and Scotch in this story serve that specific purpose. Nick and Bill continue to get more drunk. As they do, and the conversation of Marjorie eventually comes up, Nick’s emotions come to surface. It is obvious that he is regretting his decision. “All he knew was that he had once had Marjorie and that he had lost her.” Then Bill mentions that they shouldn’t talk about it because he wouldn’t want Nick to get back into it. “Nick had not thought about that. I had seemed so absolute. That was a thought. That made him feel better.” He had considered him and Marjorie done forever, but the thought that it wasn’t absolute, that he could go back to her if he wanted, made him happier. I believe the drinking serves the purpose of displaying Nick’s emotions with honesty. Had they not been drinking, he probably would not have felt such a yearning to return to Marjorie-- the fact that the spark was not there anymore would have been fresh in his mind. However, we are described what he is feeling as he feels them, without thought or logic interfering-- raw Nick. And in this instance, he is missing Marjorie and is comforted by the fact he can have her back.

Stella

       My vehicle has had quite the history in its short life. My dad bought this dark green 1998 Ford Mustang convertible when it was new in 1998 for my mother for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. When my brother turned fifteen in 2002, he received the ‘Stang as his first car. In 2003, my brother and uncle traded cars, with my uncle receiving the convertible until he blew out the engine in 2005. In April of 2006, I had just turned fourteen and therefore had just gotten my learner’s permit, allowing me to drive anywhere as long as an adult was in the car. My parents surprised me by fixing up the vehicle and giving it to me as my first car ever. Of course in their eyes, it wasn’t my car officially until I could legally drive it myself, but in my eyes, it was all mine already. I’ve had that car now, which I named Stella after the first time I drove her, since that fateful day in April 2006 and she has been a pleasure to drive.

       I’ll start with the exterior. Dark green with a high shine, no matter what the weather, Stella is always glimmering. The top is a light brown saddle color that retracts to open up to the outside. This is by far my favorite feature of the car. As a fan of the outdoors, riding around in the summer with the top down is always one of those little things I look forward to throughout the year. Stella is definitely a summer car.

       The interior of the car is made in standard Ford Mustang fashion: 150 horsepower engine, leather seats, two-door, four-seat, black dashboard, brown console and brown foot rugs. However, Stella is like my second room. Everyone’s rooms are personalized to fit who they are and what they like. The same can be said for Stella; the items I have in my car help to add some personality.

       One advantage of having one car for nearly six years is the amount of memorable things that I rediscover within the two doors. This is what I find in my car... 

       On the driver’s side, I see sunflower seeds next to the right hip between the seat belt and middle console. A full, warm, year-old water bottle sits right next to the seeds. Hanging on my mirror are a variety of items from events of my past. There is an elastic eye patch from our pirate-themed homecoming junior year; a headband I wore during state tennis my sophomore year; a scented necklace made out of Lebanese cedar trees  that my Grandma brought back for me two summers ago; a miniature Star Wars action figure hanging from the eye patch; a stretchy giraffe pinned between the mirror and windshield; and at least six scented car fresheners that have accumulated over the years and needless to say do not serve any purpose anymore. 

       The floor of the passenger seat is surprising clean, probably because I throw any trash or clothes immediately into the back seats, where I now look. On these pair of seats, I find a pair of sweatpants, three loose burnt CD’s, my CD case, the first season of Entourage (I was looking for that!), a bag of McDonald’s trash, my camera tripod, and twenty-two cents. On the floor, there is a collection of water bottles that has now probably reached the low twenties, some empty, some not. Obviously I don’t clean any of this out, because it would take away from Stella’s character.

       There is a space between the back seats and the trunk into which the top reclines that is consistently filled with water from a hole in the top. Fortunately, this rarely leaks into the trunk, which I usually keep tidy in order to fit everything I need. Here, I find a blanket, a towel, a sweatshirt, a giant bag of assorted candy, a pair of socks, my tennis shoes, my tennis bag, my golf bag, my golf shoes, four loose tennis balls, a lug wrench, a jack, and underneath the carpet and cardboard, a spare tire. At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Now Brandon, Mustangs are not that big. How in the world do you fit all of that in your trunk?” Well, curious young readers, if you’ve ever played a game of Tetris, it goes a bit like that; everything must go in a certain place for it all to fit. And because I never know when I’ll be playing golf or tennis or changing a tire or just have a craving for some delicious candy, it all must fit. 

       Every person and his/her car have a relationship. Some, like newlyweds, are excited about the adventures ahead and interested to see what more there is to learn. Others, like seventy-years-married-still-in-love old couples, have a hard time parting with their first true car love. Even others, like the disgruntled middle-aged couple who got married too soon, just want out and are tired of the same old ride over and over again. Stella and me? Well, after six years, I can truly say I am still happy with my first car. We’re like those high school sweethearts that actually worked out. I am leaving for Italy in January and won’t be back until May. It’ll be a record time away from my car. In the meantime, there is a definite possibility my mom will discover that sweet feeling when she rides with the top down on a warm, sunny day, and I’ll come back and discover Stella’s been renamed Francisco and is now in her possession full-time. It’d take me awhile to bring Stella back to her old self, but as we saw from those old people in The Notebook, love will always bring you back, and we’d be reunited at last.

An Afternoon with Ruben: Part II (Meeting 6)

       I have two cousins that go to TCU and every Friday, we and a few other friends from home meet up and talk and eat dinner. This Friday, we were going to Fusion, a hookah cafe, then to Fuzzy’s for dinner and I decided to invite Ruben along because we wouldn’t be able to meet the week of Thanksgiving and because my cousin always talked about how she spoke Spanish really well and I wanted to give her the ultimate test. While waiting for my cousin to arrive, I got to learn more about Ruben’s Venezuelan friends, Jane and Lina. Lina is nineteen years old and is in the highest level of English that the ESL program offers, therefore the closest to fluency. I had noticed that whenever Ruben or Jane were explaining something and couldn’t think of the right words to say, they would turn to Lina and say something in Spanish, then Lina would come out with the word they wanted. Jane is twenty-seven years old and was a journalist in Venezuela. However, she explained, Hugo Chavez was not fond of journalists because of the way he was represented in the media and therefore journalism work was hard to find for June in Venezuela. Therefore, she moved to America and is planning to continue journalism here until she finds the right opportunity to return. She has been married for one year (and wears her ring on her right hand, as they do in Venezuela), but does not have any children yet, although she plans to soon. I also found out she is a Spanish conversation partner, helping someone with their Spanish like I help Ruben with his English, and this someone is Mr. David Belpedio, who may or may not ever read this blog.

       Once my cousin arrived, the Spanish began. Even though she had been out of practice for a semester, my cousin definitely held her own and Ruben later told me he was extremely impressed with her Spanish. As a side note, however, the three South Americans had to slow down when they talked by at least three times the speed they would normally talk. But talking to my cousin Julia after, it was amazing not only how much the language came back to her talking to native speakers, but also how excited she got about it again, asking me to help her set up a Spanish conversation partner like Mr. Belpedio has.

       We then went to Fuzzy’s, which none of the three had been to before. Standing in line, they all asked me what they should get and I suggested the baja tacos or burritos. We had a good five minute conversation about how “chips and queso” was not the restaurant trying to be authentic but that most Americans called the hot, cheesy dip “queso,” even though in Spanish that encompasses all cheese. They also laughed at the appetizer “borrachio” beans, which in Spanish means drunk. We had a delicious meal and then Ruben drove me back home. During the car ride, we got stuck at a light for about four minutes, in which time he explained to me every Columbian would have ran it by then. He said nobody obeys the traffic laws there, and that, for example, if someone got pulled over drunk, but offered the police officer a bribe, he could get off scot-free. After seeing the traffic in Mexico, I was not surprised that this kind of corruption existed in Columbia, but it is still crazy to think how different American culture must be to them compared to a culture in which bribing a police officer is a regular occurrence. After a good four hours with my Columbian conversation partner and his Venezuelan friends, I felt that I had learned an amazing amount more about these people and their cultures and hopefully they were able to come out feeling more confident about their English skills.

An Afternoon with Ruben: Part I (Meeting 5)

       I met with Ruben for the fifth time on Friday and with him were his two friends from Venezuela, Lina and June. We met at Barnes and Noble again, which has become the regular now. I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so I brought along a Potbelly’s sandwich. He asked what was in it and I told him ham, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise and jalepenos. To my surprise, at the thought of eating jalepenos, Ruben cringed and explained to me how much he hates hot food. I had just assumed that any person from Mexico or South America would be a fan of salsa or any of its counterparts.

       I then asked him what kind of food he would usually eat in Columbia and he told me that they ate a variety of everything, just like us. He said he would have burgers, hot dogs, pasta, pizza, and of course, quesadillas and tacos. One food he said that might be considered a Columbian specialty was an arepa, which is like a thick pancake with butter and other spices on top.

       We then talked about each other’s plans for Thanksgiving. He said that he is meeting up with his aunt and grandma, who both live in the area and just spending time with family for the weekend. He asked why we had a holiday called Thanksgiving, and I told him the whole story about the Pilgrims and Indians, but that the main reason is to step back and realize what is important in your life and to give thanks for those particular things. While the holiday itself is not globally honored, being able to give thanks for the blessings in one’s life is a universal quality that Ruben and everyone can appreciate.

       From there, Ruben asked me if I knew of any good bars around the area. I told him that I knew of Old Rips and Rock Bottom, but that I didn’t know if they were any good because I was only nineteen. He thought for a second and then remembered that the drinking age here was twenty-one, compared to eighteen in his home country. He told me that he thinks America is extremely uptight about the drinking age laws and that he believes it should be switched to eighteen here as well. I told him I agree. While I can understand why the drinking age is twenty-one, I still agree with my eighty-seven year old grandpa that if someone can fight, defend, and die for his/her country, then he or she should be able to have a beer. Ruben told me that while the drinking age is eighteen, most Columbians begin younger. For example, Ruben began drinking when he was fourteen. Based on our societal norms, this sounds disastrous and sad. Generally, underage drinking is associated with troublemakers, bound for a future not as good as what could have been. However, when I look at Ruben now, he is an incredibly nice guy, has a solid job, a degree in engineering--basically, he seems to have a great life. It is interesting to see the perceptions of other cultures about certain subjects that America takes extremely seriously.

Convo Partner Meeting #4: Friday, 11/11

       Ruben and I are really starting to get to know each other at this point and I can actually see many improvements in his English. One thing specifically that he has asked about every time we have met is English tenses and how well he uses them correctly when he is talking to me. In our first meeting, some sentences he would say would be similar to, “I graduate in May 2009,” and even though I knew what he was saying, the tense on the verb would be incorrect. Now however, he is even using conjunctions with his tenses, such as won’t, couldn’t, and can’t. It is just interesting to watch as someone moves closer and closer to fluency in a language.

       I asked him what he was doing this weekend and he said he was going to mostly relax and maybe take his sister to “the cinema” to see Paranormal Activity 3. He then asked me what I was doing and I told him that my fraternity was having a party that I might go to. For some reason, it did not even cross my mind that Ruben wouldn’t know what a fraternity was. When explaining fraternities to someone who has never heard of them, it is difficult to describe without getting some weird looks and a lot of questions. “A brotherhood of men that share many of the same ideals who are bound together by the sacred bonds of ritual.” Ruben really didn’t know what to think when I told him about it. I was laughing. It really did sound sketchy and weird. And to top it off, our name was made up of Greek letters, which Ruben had no knowledge of. I think right when I told him, he believed I was part of some secret cult on TCU’s campus. But after I explained the various things we do around campus and how many students at TCU join fraternities and sororities, he began to grasp what being in a fraternity entails. He told me that at Columbian universities, there is nothing like this and most stress is put on the academics, although he didn’t seem completely against the idea of fraternities (after he knew they weren’t cults).

       Overall though, I find it riveting to explain parts of American culture that Ruben does not know about yet because he is learning about our country and able to compare it back to the country he knows best. Vice versa, it is always fascinating to learn about other countries, like Columbia, because it allows us to view our lives from a different perspective than that which we’ve always known and grown up with.

Cathedral Experience

       The story Cathedral, written in 1981 by Raymond Carver, was my favorite story of the semester so far. This was the story about a man and woman who are visited by one of the woman’s longtime friends who happens to be blind. Even though the man’s name is never mentioned, I loved how real the narrator felt to me. Because he narrates the whole story, we are able to experience what he experienced and get a personal look at this story from his perspective. I believe Carver did this on purpose to allow us to become more personally invested in this story, as if, at the end of of the story, we were sitting on the couch with the three characters, rather than looking at it from an outside third party.

       With that said, the narrator has a sad life. He hates his job, but has no choice except to continue with it. His wife is uninterested in him. He stays up as late as possible to watch television and smoke marijuana because he doesn’t want to go to sleep. He doesn’t believe in anything. His life means nothing to him. He is just going through the motions.

       This is when Robert comes into his life. Robert is admired and loved by his wife and he cannot seem to understand that. According to the narrator, the blind are extremely different than “normal” people like him. For example, he finds it difficult to believe that Robert could ever love a woman or be loved by a woman because of his lack of sight. Because he cannot know what she looks like and because she cannot know what he thinks of the way she looks, the narrator cannot comprehend that a blind man is capable of such a connection. However, despite the fact that the narrator looks down on the blind man as crippled, he is still jealous of the connection that this man has with his wife. He is ignorant of the fact that he is the one holding himself back. The narrator could have this same kind of connection with his wife, but, out of selfishness, refuses to even try. He needs some kind of epiphany or experience to wake him from his laziness.

       I love the way Carver develops the climax of the story. Because the narrator has nothing else to talk about with Robert when his wife goes to prepare for bed, he turns on the television. Feeling awkward watching TV with a blind man, he begins to describe what he is seeing. When a cathedral is displayed, the narrator is unable to describe it. Robert then has the narrator draw the cathedral with Robert’s hand on top so he can “feel” what it looks like. I don’t think that Carver picked a cathedral or that the narrator believes in nothing coincidentally. I believe that Robert is helping the narrator to experience something that is hard to describe. 

       “It was like nothing else in my life up to now.” Everyone has moments that are indescribable. For example, I can’t even begin to describe my hang-gliding experience. Flying through the air is not a natural feeling and it’s definitely something that I cannot describe; all I could say is you have to experience it to understand it. Robert surfaces this feeling in the narrator by opening up his mind and forcing him to experience. The narrator has been living his life as a spectator, seeing things around him but only what is on the surface. A blind man must teach the narrator that there is more to life than just looking. There is so much more than just what happens in front of one’s eyes. Being able to feel, to not see everything so straightforward, to open one’s mind, to experience and appreciate, creates an inner warmth that far exceeds the dry everyday life of the narrator. 

Convo Partner Meeting #3

       I met with Ruben again and along with him came two of his lady friends from his ESL program. He started by asking how my “week of Hell” had gone, as I had called my week full of tests and papers two weeks ago. I told him I got four A’s on my tests and an A- on my midterm paper. I asked him if that would be a 5 in Columbia, and he clarified that the grading scale there is 1-5 in “University,” but in school, they use letters like us. An “E” is the best, and an “I” is the worst (for “excellente” and “insufficiente,” or something close to that).

       Ruben then asked if I could proofread one of his papers for his ESL class. The subject of the paper was to describe something that had happened in his life that was important to him, and he chose to describe his graduation from engineering school. The main thing he kept messing up in his paper was tense. For example he would say, “When the graduation party start, I meet many people that congratulate me.” I still get caught messing up for this same subject of tenses, so I was impressed with Ruben’s essay.

       From there, Ruben was asking me what people usually do for Thanksgiving. I explained that on the Thursday of Thanksgiving, most families have work or school off and they are able to get together for a big feast with turkey and dressing. It is mostly just a time of relaxation and giving thanks for all the blessings people have. Then, the Christmas season begins right after Thanksgiving, capped by Black Friday. He seemed especially intrigued with Black Friday, mostly because he had never heard of it and was really wanting an iPad. I told him that most stores have sales of some sort, but the shopping begins at midnight on Thursday night, and people will camp out all night to be the first in line for new, discounted products. Once inside the stores, it is chaotic. He seemed turned off by the idea, which is understandable, considering I would not want to stand in a line for hours and battle for products with tired, angry Americans, especially if I did not know the language as well as others. I then told him about online shopping and gave him some websites to check out for his iPad so that he wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of Black Friday stores. After always growing up with Thanksgiving and Black Friday, it is interesting to get someone from another culture’s perspective on our holidays, and also to wonder about what holidays he celebrates in his country, if there is one that might relate to our Thanksgiving, and his perspective on his country’s own holidays.

Life Magazine: December 19th, 1955

       The last library research paper, I chose to examine an issue of Time Magazine from March of 1933. This time, I decided to go with something different and chose Life Magazine. This specific issue was published and released on December 19, 1955, just before the Christmas holiday. I chose this year because this was right during the communist scare of the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement was beginning in America, and television sets were becoming a regular belonging of the average American family; it was a definitive moment in American history. Probably because this would be the last issue before Christmas, the magazine is filled with Christmas advertisements, articles, and pictures. Even coming in knowing the abundance of pictures in a regular Life issue, I was blown away by the amount of photographs, which enhanced every article I read. After reading the Time from 1933, I was not expecting a magazine that engaged a reader of today like myself from a magazine published only twenty-two years later. However, the 116-page Life kept me thoroughly engaged and I was pleasantly surprised by the content of the articles, the multitude of photos and overall image of Life’s Christmas issue.

       The first article that caught my attention was one entitled “A $6 Billion Christmas.” Americans in 1955 spent $6 billion on Christmas shopping! Adjusted for inflation, that is about $48.2 billion in 2011. Parents were spending $100 on toy suits of armor for their children. One man spent $80,000 in one outing at Neiman-Marcus. While there were actually more bargains in 1955 than the previous year, there were more sales of the more expensive merchandise. For example, $40 handbags were by far outselling $20 handbags and $135 housecoats were much more popular than $75 ones. What this tells me is that 1955 was a great time to be a consumer. In today’s economy, businesses are pleading with buyers to get out and purchase more to stimulate our weak economy. In 1955, however, this did not seem like a problem, as millions flooded to stores to buy the more expensive product. This article is then followed by twenty-one pictures of such products: extravagant Christmas lights, $150 trees, fur coats, nine-foot tall stuffed giraffes, $1,000 porcelain dolls, and a stuffed tiger decorated in $1 million worth of jewels. Many of these gifts would be expensive even today and it was incredible to see the amount people were spending in 1955 to please friends and family.

       An article about Sugar Ray Robinson grabbed my attention next. It chronicles the story of the fighter, who retired, vowing never to fight again, went through severe debt problems, found God, then returned to the ring to fight for the middleweight crown he had won twice before. Defying all odds, Robinson knocked out his opponent, Bobo Olson, in the second round, and regained his title as middleweight champion. It was the pictures surrounding the article that drew me into this fighter’s story. One shows Robinson at church, another him playing with his son, and a third walking the streets with nobody even recognizing him. Photos also record Robinson’s KO as four sequential shots show him landing a solid punch on his competitor’s face and Olson out on the floor of the ring. Then, pictures show Robinson crying after his epic win, praying at church, thanking his staff, family and friends, and surrounded by admirers and fans with a huge smile on his face. The story of Sugar Ray Robinson was a great one, but the pictures are what captured my attention and allowed me to see Robinson in his worst times and in his greatest. It made me feel genuinely happy for a man that seemed to turn his life around and accomplish something nobody believed he could. For an article from a 1955 issue of Life to make me become a fan of a man fifty-six years out of his prime shows that a story like this accompanied with pictures of his success has no time bounds.

       As a film major, I always look for some kind of article about film or theatre from the time period when looking at these magazines. This issue juxtaposed two stories of drug addicts from both film and theatre, The Man with the Golden Arm and A Hatful of Rain, respectively. In 1955, the Motion Picture Association of America was still strict about subjects of this matter and therefore refused to approve The Man with the Golden Arm. This film chronicles the struggle of Frankie Machine, played by Frank Sinatra, as he deals with drug addiction while trying to maintain his family and work life. Obviously, this subject matter is by no means light and the MPAA did not deem it suitable for American audiences. However, this was at a time when the film industry was moving toward a freedom not felt since before restrictions were imposed upon them. The 1960s would bring out the ratings system we know today, where these films would be released given the warning to the public that subject matter would be intense. When I look at my DVD collection today, I see such movies as Requiem For A Dream, Candy, 21 Grams, Blow, Trainspotting, and Traffic, all of which have to do with drug addiction. I find it interesting to research the change in the industry from its restriction-happy days of the 1930s and 40s to now, and the battle for the release of The Man with the Golden Arm fits right into that history. The article addresses the fact that the industry is moving toward a new independence in which subject matter such as drug addiction could be found in released movies.

       Life’s December 19, 1955 issue surprised me by thoroughly grabbing my attention. With Christmas soon approaching, the article addressed the holiday season with articles and advertisements about the subject, including one ad for the magazine itself, explaining how great a gift the 52 issues of Life at $4.75 are to friends and family. At the end of the issue, there is a publisher’s preview of the next issue, which is completely dedicated to the subject of Christianity. It will review the beliefs of Christianity, show the importance of it in the U.S. and the challenges it faces during the time period, then conclude by showing the impact of the religion in countries around the world. Life shows a dedication to the holiday season with this special double issue as well as the articles and ads from the article I read. With its engaging articles and especially its abundant use of pictures to assist in the storytelling, I was able to gain a better understanding of the American society in 1955. I read and saw the importance of Christmas shopping to our culture, I felt for an aged fighter who battled against the odds and I learned more about film industry restrictions by looking forward from 1955 rather than backward from 2011. Overall, this Life issue gave me a great view into our society in 1955 and I enjoyed the entire issue.

Convo Partner Meeting #2

       My second meeting with Ruben was on Friday the seventh, which came after a hard week of tests and papers for me. He asked how I did on the tests and I told him I got an “A” on one and I didn’t know about the rest yet. Then he asked me what an “A” was. It didn’t even cross my mind that the grading systems would be so different across countries. He explained to me that in Columbia they use a grading system like ours, but instead of letters, they use numbers. A “5” would be the equivalent to an “A,” and a “0” equivalent to an “F.”

       I asked him about his English classes and he told me what they were working on at the time. Each student would have headphones and would be asked a question and the student would have to give a logical, correct answer in response. I was surprised when he told me that he got a 75% on it because I thought that his English was understandable and correct most of the time. He explained that when he cannot see the person talking and he can only hear the English, it makes comprehending it ten times harder. When I am sitting with him at Barnes and Noble face to face, he has an easy time understanding because facial expressions, mouth shape, and overall demeanor are able to assist him in grasping what I am saying. But on the phone or from the headphones, he has a much harder time because he only has what he hears to go off of. Prior to our first meeting, I was expecting someone not as experienced in the language because we had only talked on the phone and therefore our conversations struggled. But in person, Ruben’s English is definitely conversational and improving.

       One of the subjects he was learning in his English class was the similarities between English words. For example, he told me, “quit,” quiet,” and “quite.” When in conversation, how is one supposed to know which is being said, he asked me. For someone learning the language that hasn’t grown up with it his/her whole life, I would think English would be one of the hardest languages to learn, second only to maybe Chinese. English has so many odd exceptions and pronunciation rules that it really is a matter of just time and experience to fully understand it all. I still don’t understand the language sometimes and I’m nineteen years into learning it. I can’t even imagine how Ruben feels.

Ruben Amaya: Columbian Convo Partner

     My first meeting with my conversation partner, Ruben Amaya, went much smoother than I thought it would. In trying to coordinate a meeting place and time, the English in his emails was misleading of how good his English actually is. For example, we planned to meet in the library but he went to Barnes and Noble. This is a completely understandable mistake, but as it turns out, his English was impressive and only a few times did he use his portable translator on his phone to find the right English word for what he was describing. Ruben is from Cali, Columbia, and told me that he took English all through high school and some in college as well. His aunt has lived in Texas for thirty-one years so she helped him with his English when he first arrived. In Columbia, he studied industrial engineering for five years “at university” and is now working at a phone company retail store.

     To my surprise, Ruben did most of the talking during out meeting. He was openly conversational and told me many interesting things about his home country. He said that the Columbia everyone thinks of when they hear the name of the country is one plagued by crime, drug cartels and murders. However, he loves Columbia and stated that the country is getting better and the crime rate is decreasing. He also said that many American tourists come there regularly despite what they hear in the news. He believes that the media has a big part in the global representation of his home country. They never show any of the good happening in the country and only when there is a story involving the drug lords is Columbia even mentioned, therefore giving it a bad public image. He feels safe in Cali, the city he is from, but by no means as safe as when in Fort Worth. He loves the security that being in the States gives him.

     He asked me about my major, which is Film, and he showed an immediate interest in the study of it. He said that in his hometown, they had three movie venues with two or three theaters in each. They would show mostly American movies, but occasionally some Columbian movies as well. Also, in Fort Worth, he said he goes to the theaters around town on a regular basis. I can understand how seeing movies in English might be a good way to practice the language. Being able to hear people talk in the language for an hour and a half to two hours might be a huge benefit, especially in expanding his vocabulary. I am an Italian minor and I know that when I watch a movie in Italian, I come out of that movie at least feeling like I know more or can speak more of the language.

     Ruben told me about some of the customs and traditions of Columbia that interested me. He said that each city in Columbia has their own local traditional festival each year. For Cali, it is from December 25th-30th. The capital, Bogota, has theirs sometime in July. During these festivals, there is no work, everyone just celebrates and relaxes and eats and drinks and has a good time. Also, he told me that in America his name is Ruben Amaya, but in Columbia, the last names of mothers and grandparents are also included in the name. Ruben said he could only remember seven of his names just because it went back so far, but that is still incredible. I could not imagine my name being Brandon Gregory Somerhalder Laham Throckmorton Salome. Overall, in our hour and a half long talk, Ruben and I kept a great conversation and I’m excited to meet again.

Time Magazine 3/14/1932

I chose a March 14th Time Magazine article from the year 1932 to conduct my library research. The reason I chose this year was because I knew that this was right in the heart of the Great Depression and I wanted to get a sense of the variety of articles and advertisements a society in such a slump was reading.

The first thing that stands out to me is the advertisements. The article starts out with fourteen pages of pure advertisements with no articles in between. It would be interesting to compare an article from this time period with one from before the Great Depression to see if such an emphasis was placed on promoting the product as it is in the 1932 issue.

The characteristics of the advertisements are equally as interesting. In modern magazines, the attention of the ad is usually placed on a picture endorsing the product and then a catchy jingle or motto of the company, usually kept quite short. For example, a McDonald’s ad might have a large picture of a young couple smiling and laughing, each enjoying a Big Mac and fries, with “I’m lovin’ it” and the trademark golden arches finishing off the promo. However, in the Time, advertisements explaining and detailing the product are abundant. One two-page ad for the “Packard Light Eight” car has over four-hundred words, the only pictures being of a profile of the car itself and a four inserts of the interior design. Another ad for Johns-Manville Heat, Cold, Sound and Motion describes a story of a trial in which the jury could not convict an obviously guilty suspect because of “faulty acoustics” in the courthouse. The marketing methods and strategies have clearly changed dramatically. What this says about the society of that period is that they read much more intensively than our society of today. People in the modern Internet culture are known to be “skimmers,” merely glancing over articles and ads when reading through a magazine. I don’t believe ads from 1932 placed in a magazine today would have any impact at all and might actually irritate the reader for making them read such lengthy segments about the product.

While there were no articles during the first fourteen pages of ads, there were letters sent to the editors. Some of the letters were interesting, but the main thing that I noticed was that all ten letters published were addressed to “Sirs,...” This just reemphasized to me the domination men had in the workplace at this time. Women were still “housewives” while the men did the work, and therefore every editor would in fact be a "Sir."

The real contents of the magazine, the articles, were divided into eighteen subcategories: Aeronautics, Art, Books, Business and Finance, Cinema, Education, Foreign News, Letters, Medicine, Milestones, Music, National Affairs, People, Press, Religion, Science, Sport and Theatre. Without even reading a single article, one is able to assess a certain amount about the people reading this magazine. The easiest thing to notice about these categories is the broad spectrum of disciplines that are covered here. Those interested in art and pop culture (Art, Books, Cinema, Music, People, Theatre), the government and economy (Business and Finance, Foreign News, National Affairs, Press), science (Medicine, Science) and any other broad range of subjects are all covered in this magazine.

The articles themselves are keyed toward the same intensive readers as the ads, with long write-ups, small print and few pictures. As I moved further into the article section of the magazine, however, I again became distracted by the amount of advertisements, which were now placed around relevant articles based on the category I was in. For example, in the “Aeronautics” section, the articles were surrounded by advertisements for Autogiro Company of America and United Air Lines (United’s prices for a flight from New York to the Pacific Coast were $160.00... If only that were true today. The flight was also thirty-one hours long... wow).

As a film major, I was interested to see the cinema section, which includes reviews of the new movies of the week. Such films for March 14, 1932 were Strangers in Love (Paramount), Sky Devils (Howard Hughes), The Impatient Maiden (Universal), and After Tomorrow (Fox). I found it amazing that studios such as Paramount, Universal and Fox, which are still dominant in the industry today, were such powerhouses even back in 1932. The reviews talk about the hype leading up to the movie, the stars, the plot, and how the movie was. Perhaps because I’m more interested in these type of articles, I found this section to be more similar to modern magazine articles and therefore much easier to read.

It is amazing how much one is able to infer about a society just from reading one magazine from that time period. I picked this issue in 1932 because I wanted to see if the impact of the Great Depression could be felt through the words and pictures of this magazine. The abundance of advertisements were the obvious characteristic I was looking for. In an economy where all confidence is lost within the consumer, magazines are trying to help stimulate the market by rebuilding the loyalty between the people and the product. This Time Magazine was fifty-six pages long. When I separated the articles and the advertisements, I discovered that about twenty-four of the fifty-six pages were actually articles and the other thirty-two were all ads. This magazine gave me a chance to get a glimpse of the 1932 society deep within the hands of the Great Depression and I found it truly interesting to compare it to our modern culture.

The Man Who Was Almost A Man Reflections

  The plot of this story by Richard Wright is not a confusing one - a boy wants a gun, he buys a gun, he accidentally shoots a mule, he runs away - but the underlying themes, symbols, autobiographical references and overall subject matter could be talked about for days. And while this was the story that my group and I discussed in our 45 minutes of fame leading the class, I found The Man Who Was Almost A Man especially interesting.

Essentially, this story was about a kid who could not fit in anywhere. Dave, a 17-year-old black boy, is constantly bullied by the other black people in the community. “Whut’s the use talking wid em n****** in the field?...Them n****** can’t understan nothing. One of these days he was going to get a gun and practice shooting, then they couldn’t talk to him as though he were a little boy.” And at the same time, being a black in the South in the 1930s-40s, Dave is not accepted by the white community either.

This is a direct relation to the life of the author, Richard Wright. In 1927, at the age of 19, Wright moved from his home in Mississippi to Chicago and the John Reed Club, a group noted for its communist ideals. From there, he moved to New York, where he became acquainted with more communists. However, the white communists rescinded their offer to find him housing, thereby leaving him out of their group. Moreover, the black communists considered him a bourgeois intellectual assimilated with white culture (even though Wright’s highest level of formal education was simple grammar) and kept him out of their group. Knowing this, it is interesting to see how this isolation transposed onto paper within his characters. The morning after buying the gun, Dave reflects on his new possession: “In the gray light of dawn he held it loosely, feeling a sense of power. Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white.” This is obviously an example of the presence of racism in the south during that time, but Dave’s hatred toward both races shows the true isolation of this character (and author), and one can see how Wright could eventually come to befriend such people as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, known existentialists.

The glaring irony in this story was also noteworthy. The name of the story is The Man Who Was Almost A Man because it is the story of a boy searching for manhood. Power and control are what he believes a true man possesses, and this is why he acquires the gun, something which will give him power over anyone and everyone. However, what I believe to be attributes of a man are responsibility, maturity and poise. Dave works and earns money, but nobody believes him to be mature enough to handle this money. Therefore, he must go through his mother to “purchase” or “acquire” his manhood with the gun. In fact, he can’t even confront his father, which is probably the best example of manhood he sees regularly. After purchasing the gun, Dave hides his from his family, the first of many examples that he is not responsible enough to own one. Just after shooting Jenny, he immediately begins forming a lie about what happened; he is not able to take responsibility for his actions. The last major example of this comes at the end of the story when Dave decides to jump on a train going North with just an empty gun in his possession. He leaves to search for manhood, but in essence, he is leaving to escape the responsibility of paying for his actions. He has not learned from his mistake.