Bloggin in the moonlight

2006-07-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Free Write
Riding in the Van

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020
July 11, 2006

When I was in grade school, my mother and father decided to get a divorce. There were fights about who owned what and about who got us. Both my parents reassured me that it was not my fault and I believed them, but they still insisted I see someone just to make sure. I can honestly say that that man was the creepiest person I have ever met. After all the bickering and complaining settled down, my mother and father began to date again. My dad was interested in a hell hound named Robin while my mom brought home Dave. My brother and I hated Robin because she was mean and talked bad about our mother, but Dave was awesome.
After a while, my dad had a new girlfriend but my mom was still with Dave. My brother and I got very attached to Dave as the time went by because of how cool he was. Dave was part Native American and took pride in his heritage, and he was also a professional artist who painted and did sculptures for places like the “Loon River Café.” He only painted natural things like birds, bears, and deer.
We used to take long trips up to Dave’s cabin right off the coast of Lake Huron in Roger’s City. I remember the trips fondly I think of them as some of the best trips I will ever go on in my life. He used to take us all around Michigan in his beat up van and explore the small towns.
The best part was being in that huge van. Each seat was an individual spot so we had a lot of room and the windows on the side were the biggest have ever seen. When the back wasn’t packed with luggage, there was a mattress there so we could just lay and bounce around while he drove to a new destination. The ride always consisted of a lot of jokes and Chris Isaak or Roy Orbison singing about blue this or wicked that. That van was so much fun to be in. Even though I didn’t like the music, when I hear those songs I think back fondly and I wish Dave never left in his van.
I love driving in my car and listening to music and I know it’s because of all the fun times I had in Dave’s van, listening to his music. I used to love Dave more then I loved my own father, so when he left I was devastated. After that, I started listening to any music that was far from Orbison and Isaak. I hated that music because it reminded me of Dave and all the fun we could be having. Korn and Slipknot were there to flush out the pain of separation and let me change course on where I could have gone if Dave stayed.

2006-07-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Comedy as a Tool

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020
July 11, 2006

When we watched Stephen Colbert Speak in front of the president, we saw him use comedy to bring up important issues. This use of comedy is explored more thoroughly in Alain De Botton’s essay “Comedy.” De Botton writes about how cartoonist and comedians use comedy to poke fun at the vices of those with power and in high ranking positions. I think that what De Botton claims is very true. When people sit down and listen to comedians like Lewis Black and Dennis Miller, they are subject to jokes about the president and all those people who run our government. As De Botton writes, “jokes are an enormously effective means of anchoring a criticism” (392) and many people, in today’s world, criticize our government and the way it is run.
I am not very fond of Lewis Black or Dennis Miller but that I, like many others, still watch The Daily Show. People can say they don’t like political humor but it is so hard to escape it that in the end… everyone laughs at jokes. In his essay, De Botton writes about a French man who makes fun of King Louis-Philippe by drawing the king’s head as a pear. In this day and age, as an American, I always see President Bush being made fun of or Dick Cheney holding a shotgun in a cartoon. I think humor is great entertainment and a wonderful way to spread knowledge.

Work Cited
De Botton, Alain. “Comedy.” ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 390-394.

2006-07-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020

I Love Dogs

After reading Jon Katz’s essay, “Petophilia,” I realized that I am one of those people that love their dog like it was a member of the family. Katz makes this out to be a bad thing when he states “Love [dogs] all you want, but maintain some perspective on what they are and where your love comes from” (327). I can see the logic that we are using up our love on animals when we should be loving humans but since when does love have limitations? I can honestly say that I love many people and many animals and I still have enough love left to spread some out for the new additions to my life. It is a sad thing to try and over-analyze a very primitive yet complex emotion like love.
Ever since I was small, I’ve loved dogs and animals alike. My mother, however, did not share this love for she was the one responsible for feeding and cleaning the dogs. I was born into a family that owned a dog named “Mandy.” Mandy was a beagle-mutt that we had until I was about 4. Next, my sister picked out a small puppy that was a Shiatsu-Poodle mix and named it “Pugsley.” I think that dog might have been the spawn of Satan but my mom got rid of him by telling us he ran away. She really just took him to the humane society. Over the next several years, we went through 4 dogs and 7 cats. The dogs, whose names were as follows: “Jake,” “Jake,” “Daisy,” and “Jack,” all mysteriously vanished in the night. The last dog even had a man’s footprints to look like the dog was stolen when really it was just my fiendish mother with her dastardly tricks. We had 2 female cats, and “Ziggy” gave birth to 5 more kitties. At this point, we had found out that I was allergic to cats so we got rid of them all. The day we got rid of the cats, was also the same day my mom got rid of our last dog and one of my fish died. This left me with just a lonely guppy named Anne.
It seemed like we would never have a dog again but 2 years ago, I asked my older brother to buy me a $200 beagle puppy for my birthday. He agreed, so we went up to Port Huron and met a man there with 2 female beagles. I picked out the lazy looking skinny one and named her “Chica.” Now, 2 years later, my mother loves that dog like it was part of the family because in my house, that dog is part of our family. Chica was trained to not poop in the house, sit, and lay down within 2 months, and my mom just got attached to the cocked head and the crazy noises. She is always there when your sad, cocking her head and huffing at you, and she always love to see you. I can’t not love my dog just as much as I love humans, she is my dog… she’s the only being I know that will cock her head with the same expression the whole time while I squeal her name like an imbecile. My family loves our dog, and we take offence to anything that is said down on our dog. I will always love Chica regardless of what some guy believes.

Work Cited
Katz, Jon. “Petophilia.” Remix: Reading and Composing Culture. Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 325-327.

2006-07-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020

The Science of Love

Do you thing the attention of the scientific community has helped or hindered our understanding of love and romantic attention? Draw from Carey’s essay to support your view.
I believe that the attention love is getting from the scientific community will both support and divert our understanding of love. With a scientific definition of love, people will over analyze love and use the science as an excuse. Scientists studied what happens to the brain when a person is in love and found out that there are addictive properties to the romantic love. As Benedict Carey writes in his essay, “The Brian in Love,” “… the experience of romantic attraction activated those pockets of the brain with a high concentration of receptors for dopamine, the chemical messenger closely tied to states of euphoria, craving, and addiction” (342). This information can lead to the conclusion that there is no such thing as “love,” and that love is only a chemical. I understand that the chemical’s start the romantic fire but what about a couple that has been together over 15 years and still take the time to have romantic diners?
On the other hand, love is a function of the brain, and studying this function can provide more information on why people do the things they do to people they once loved so much. People claim they fall out of love with their significant others, they cheat on their spouses, and so much more. I think some of these things that people do can also be contributed to the chemicals of love. Carey makes a great point when he writes, “If passionate romance is like a drug… then it’s bound to lose its kick” (344). I think that if people know this, then when the end comes for a long relationship, maybe this fact can dull some of the pain.
Work Cited
Carey, Benedict. “The Brian in Love.” ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 341-344.

2006-06-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

Untitled

I am currently at a loss for words. After witnessing that phantasmagoric display, the words have left my mind and buried me under discomfort. I understand that this movie was shown to guide us on how mystory’s work but the level of personal intrusion was just too much too handle. I could never let anyone that far into myself… I can’t even let my own self that far. Some things are better left unsaid and unheard by anyone and that is a code that I am devoted to. Tarnation made Hostel look like a children’s book. I was deeply appalled and I feel sorry for Jonathan at the same time. Like I said before, I feel like I just raped his life. I know things I should not know and I’ve seen things that no one should see. When I write my mystory, I will tell the truth and tell about my childhood but there are some things in my life that I will never divulge with another human being because I feel that it is not within my moral boundaries to do so. While they may be important to my mystory, they are too personal for me to acknowledge. I understand that Jonathan was emotionally affected and psychologically abused but hearing and seeing it makes it too real. He took his life, and gave it to us, the hyenas, for entertainment. My life is mine for a reason, I can only let someone see so much before my life becomes less then my own.
In the movie, there is a scene that strikes me in all the wrong ways and leaves me furious and in awe. When Jonathan is recording his mother playing with the pumpkin and singing, it more than discomforts me. My family has a history of mental illness, a history that is more then just irregular fluids in the brain or a surplus of the wrong chemicals. My brother, Albert, is 22 years old. When he was born, he was healthy and normal. As Albert grew, he did everything a normal child would do and was just another little boy. I was born just before his 4th birthday. When Albert was about 8 and I was 4, doctors discovered that Albert had a pin-sized hole in his cerebellum. At the time it was not a problem, and the only side effect was the trouble learning things quickly. As time passed, the hole in his cerebellum grew and new symptoms occurred. Trouble with balance, slurred speech, and learning defects were among these symptoms.
Albert loves automobiles. Ever since I was a baby, Bert would ask my dad to take him to car dealerships just to check out the new cars. We would go up to Mike Dorian Ford on Gratiot and check out the Mustangs and Taurus and all those crazy Ford cars. About 4 years ago, when I was 15 and Albert was 18, we found out that the hole in Bert’s cerebellum has caused him to lose things like depth perception and the gag reflux. This meant that Albert will never be able to legally drive a car. I have administered the Heimlich maneuver 2 times on my chocking brother because of his inability to gag. I have also witnessed his despair for his illness.
This… I could never show to another person. I could never videotape my flesh and blood at his darkest and show it to a crowd. I have too much love and respect for my brother. Jonathan may be screwed up from his life but what did his mother do to be humiliated like that. I don’t care if she’s conscious of it or not, it is simply wrong and disrespectful. She didn’t choose the shock therapy, she had no choice. Disregarding that scene of Renee, the movie was moderately good… but some things would have been better left unsaid and not shown.

2006-06-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020
My Traditions and Customs

From the time when my memory first kicked in, I can recall my family getting together for Thanksgiving and Christmas and even Mother’s Day. While these gathering were important to me, there were other rituals I shared with my friends that had a greater importance. As I grew and developed some individuality and independence, I also developed some new traditions.
I grew up with my best friend Andy, who lived next door. We would always spend the same amount of money on each other for Christmas and get each other almost the same stuff, so one year we decided to try something different. In stead of exchanging gifts that we bought, we decided to exchange funny pictures that we drew for each other. Over the years we started buying small inexpensive gifts to heighten the humor of our drawings but the drawings are still our primary gifts. One of these small gifts was a Spanish CD entitled “Serenatas Rancheras.” This was a gift that Andy purchased for $2.99 from Big Lots. I remember these gifts more fondly then any other Christmas present I have ever gotten. Not only have Andy and I pioneered these Christmas gifts, we have also made birthdays a lot easier.

Above: CD Cover
Taken from http://www.sound-promotions.com/musiccategories/music_cd.asp?netcd=NET140
When it is one of our birthdays, either Andy or I must find a card for the occasion. This card must contain only one dollar and the card must be worth no more than five dollars. One year, I presented Andy with a card that congratulated him on his first communion as a catholic woman. When my birthday rolled around, Andy came right back with a card displaying a picture of a woman wearing a bikini and a giant, smiling, Japanese paper mache head. On the inside, in small black font, the card reads, “Huh?” These things are crazy to other people but they are special to me because they are the traditions of mine that I will not let go no matter how old I get.

2006-06-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020
Careful to admit that food isn’t necessarily better at home, Pillsbury writes, “Many homemakers are not great cooks; nor do they care to be.” If it isn’t the taste of home cooking that’s at stake, what is it that he fears is being lost by replacing the at-home experience with a restaurant?

Richard Pillsbury fears that replacing the at-home cooking with a restaurant is forbidding the connections between family members that are made when the family sits down to mom’s specialty dinner at home. Pillsbury suggests that this abandonment of cooking at home is forging weak bonds between parents and children. These issues are confronted in his essay, “Thoroughly Modern Dining.” He writes about how he has witnessed other families celebrating at restaurants instead of at home, and how his own brother has neglected at-home meals with his children. Pillsbury argues that celebrations should be at home because when you go out to eat, that feeling of love and nurturing from the family is lost. This idea is explored more thoroughly when Pillsbury writes about how his brother went to a Mexican restaurant for Thanksgiving in the following passage;
… Thanksgiving dinner was the single most important occasion of the entire year. There was a command appearance at Grammy and Papa’s, and uncle literally came from across the entire country to be there. … It was also a day when each generation spent time together building emotional bridges. The cousins ran wild in the park. The women gathered in the kitchen and brought dinner together and shared their lives. … These were activities and conversations that helped one find a sense of place in ten generations of American experience. Somehow a lunch of enchiladas and beans, even with extra sauce, just does not seem to achieve the same goals (192-93).
I completely agree with the argument brought forth by Richard Pillsbury. Every year, my family and I go either north to Deckerville and to my Grandma’s house or to my Uncle Doyle’s house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t go to one of their houses, but I certainly have very fond memories of my cousins, Matt and Amanda, playing games and having snowball fights with me and my brother before and after dinner. Matt and Amanda lived in California until I was about 11 and they were around the same age but we would have probably never met if both of our families did not attend Thanksgiving dinner their first year in Michigan. Now, almost 8 years later, I love Matt like he was my brother, and in a sense, he is my brother. These bonds are important to me, and they are part of me. I do not see how any family could survive without the bonds that I have with my family. In the future, I’ll be celebrating at home.

Work Cited
Pillsbury, Richard. “Thoroughly Modern Dining.” ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. By Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 188-193.

2006-06-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020
Communities Come in All Shapes and Sizes

A community is, by basic standards, a group of people with something in common. This thing in common can be as simple as the area in which the people live or even the fans of a particular band. The idea of a community is explored more fully in Andrew Leonard’s essay, “You Are Who You Know,” and Kathleen Norris’ essay, “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” Because the definition of a community is so wide open, virtual communities must also be acknowledged as real communities. This is the definition of a community because small towns are communities and social networks are communities as well.
Small towns are communities because every person in the town has something in common with everyone else in the town. These towns are so small that one person knows everybody in the whole town but what makes this place a community is that that one person knows he can rely on these people for different things. He or she may be able to rely on Tom for a drinking buddy and Chris for ride home. These connections to different people are what communities are all about. Some people may have small conflicts in the small town but the sense of being a part of the area and the people is what holds the community together. Kathleen Norris grew up in a small town and in her essay she recounts that a women helped a clinic evade taxes because that women felt she was helping her community but she did this with nothing in it for herself but helping out (130). Communities are not only found based upon physical interaction, they are also flooding the internet.
The social networking scene is a developing system of websites where people can post pictures, list interests, and list friends. These new online networks of people are also communities because the people in the networks are part of that craze and have common interests. People go on these websites because they offer a sense of acceptance and a person can be free and find other people with the same interests just by the click of a button. As a senior technological correspondent at Salon.com, Andrew Leonard, explains, “the promises made by social networking proponents are sky-high: they’ll get you jobs, get you laid, get you a party invite…” (151). People are just drawn in to the idea that they can find friends by typing into a search engine and this is a community because these people share these feelings and rely on each other for friendship.

2006-06-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Networking is a New Fad

Social networking by means of online communities is indeed becoming more and more popular. Many people, including myself, have accounts with websites like My Space and Live Journal. People display a great deal of personal information on these websites and based on this information, one can decide weather or not he or she wants to be associated with this person by asking him or her to be a “friend.” These connections through online conglomerations of people are explored in the essays, “You Are Who You Know,” by Andrew Leonard, and “An Ode to Friendster,” by Jennifer Bishop Fulwiler.
Leonard and Fulwiler both emphasize the amount of information present in these online communities, but does this information truly dictate how the real person actually thinks and functions in everyday life?
I have an account at MySpace.com and I like to just be completely informal with what I write and what pictures I post because I am not looking for job opportunities and I’m not in need of any dates. I am only on My Space as a joke. I have tried to find my female Beagle, Chica, a stud so she could have puppies but I got nowhere. Many of these online communities that are mainly social networking are filled with people just on the site to be on the site. Not everybody on these sites is looking for a hot date or some new fad, some people are just there to be linked with other people they are not normally in contact with. There are some people who have used their social networking skills to reach their goals, but now they’re on some b-rate show where Ted Nugent gets to shoot at them with a paint ball gun. I think I’ll stick to the traditional networking, and leave the online networking for the silly stuff.

2006-05-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
Question 1
ENG 1020
Amish Tradition
What is the purpose of the Ordnung for an Amish community? According to Hostetler, why do the Amish care so much about small details such as the color of a stove, the length of a dress, or the width of a hat brim? To what extend does the Ordnung help provide stability for the community? How does the Ordnung impact the individual?

The Ordnung is basically a set of rules that every Amish person must follow to consider themselves Amish. It was handed down through generations as the guidelines for the way an Amish person should be, so its purpose for the community is to unite the community under one set of moral ideals that were gathered from the Bible. The Ordnung ensures that every person will dress alike and that most of everyone’s positions will be very similar. The Amish care about the small details so much because the small details can link them to the outside world. Since the Amish community wants nothing to do with the world, they regulate even the smallest detail to keep things as plain and old fashioned as possible. They do all this because, as Hostetler writes, the Amish believe that they are a “chosen people” (101).
The Ordnung helps provide stability by setting the customs that must be followed. This makes the community seem stable from the outside but what about ideas that are held in ones own head? The laws and customs cannot control how people think and how people perceive things, so the community can only be stable if there are no truly rebellious people. The Ordnung is set into every person’s mind from the time they can speak so the Ordnung greatly influences the Amish people. The harsh treatment of those who do not follow the laws makes people easier to control and it also makes them follow the ordinances that have been in place for a long time.

Work Cited
Hostetler, John A. “The Amish Charter.” ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. By Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 99-107.

2006-05-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

In Class Writing #1

What Fredrich Nietzsche is saying in his paragraph excerpt from Genealogy of Morals is that many people do not have much say in the development of their own identity. Nietzsche talks about how people are part of bigger organizations where there are more followers then there are leaders, and the biggest moral instilled in these followers is to obey Genealogy of Morals (1887). Being a follower basically means that your thoughts and actions are predetermined by the leader which leaves no space whatsoever for individuality.

Nietzsche’s claim is similar to those of Firoozeh Dumas and Gloria Anzaldua. His claim is closely related to what Dumas writes about because she writes about the pressures people face when their names are not American and this pressure is there because they are different from the leaders that Nietzsche describes. People are looked down upon because their names are not “normal” according to the leaders. Anzaldua’s story about her Chicano language usage and how traditional Spanish speaking people accused her of defiling their language is related to Nietzsche’s claim because the people believe that her language is wrong only because of the fact that other people don’t find it acceptable.

In this digital age the leaders and followers notion is both complicated and simple at the same time. People shun homosexuals because their priest tells them too or because their parents talk down about such behavior. This is a very simplistic sort of fostered obedience that grew inside of one’s everyday activities. However, there are very complex ways of dictating what someone views to be right or wrong or immoral or outrageous. For instance, the senate wants to pass a bill or has passed a bill that will make instruction booklets, warning signs, caution signs, etc. only manufactured in the English language. This seems harmless since we live in the English speaking America but it also sends a message that says, “if you’re Mexican or German, we don’t care if you slip on this floor because we are superior and we speak English.” Making warning signs in only English is just another way that the leaders try to influence the followers by trying to instill a belief that all people who even visit the United States should be able to read and speak English.

2006-05-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
Question 1
ENG 1020
What’s in Your Spice-Rack?

What do you think the spice cabinet symbolizes in this essay?

Different cultures use a variety of differing spices when they cook and prepare their food. There are many spices that are used frequently among all cuisines but there are also some spices that remain unique to certain regions and cultures. When Firoozeh Dumas refers to utilizing the throaty sounds in speech as adding more spices to the cabinet in her essay “The ‘F Word,’” the addition of more spices symbolizes the absorption of more knowledge about other cultures. If spices symbolize bits of other cultures, then the spice cabinet must symbolize one’s own self being. Some spices are very particular to certain areas so the addition of that “spice” to one’s “cabinet” signifies that that person has gained something from that culture. The person could have inherited the ability to simply say something correctly or maybe he or she just learned a brief history of the culture, but the point is that the person, whether man or women, acquired some sort of knowledge that he or she did not know before.
In her essay, Firoozeh says, “move over, cinnamon and nutmeg, make way for cardamom and sumac” (61). Nutmeg and cinnamon are two very common spices that are widely used around the globe but sumac and cardamom are spices that are most notably found in the Mediterranean areas as well as in the Middle East. This reference to Middle Eastern spices supports the claim that the spice cabinet is a symbol that represents the mind and being of one’s self.

Work Cited
Dumas, Firoozeh. “The ‘F Word.’” ReMix: Reading and Composing Culture. By Catherine G. Latterell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 60-63.

2006-05-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm going to see The DaVinci Code tomorrow. I'm screwing around with these text formats.

2006-05-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

Michael Lerner
ENG 1020

There are many ways to interpret the symbolic meaning of a mask. Some masks are just for hiding a person’s face while others are used in religious ceremonies but no matter how one perceives a mask, they all serve the same purpose of hiding an aspect of self that one does not want noticed. This covering of a part of self suggests that a mask is a new identity for a while. A mask covers the face and lets a person become whoever they want without worrying about their image of self getting in the way. The masks that Lucy Grealy describes in the passage “Masks,” taken from her memoir Autobiography of a Face, hold special meanings that she conveys through her experiences when she actually or figuratively wears them.
Grealy feels very bold when she wears a mask on Halloween because most of her life, she is forced to wear the mask of her ugly face and to be able to get away from that mask for an instant and dawn a new mask that is accepted and smiled at is just liberating. Even it she can only wear her new mask for an hour or so, it lets her feel like she is just like everyone else. Throughout her story, Grealy tells the readers how boys would pick on her and call her names because of the way she looked, but on Halloween no one can see her face and everyone is wearing a mask so she fits in and doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. This freedom of being normal makes her feel great and she doesn’t understand why everyone does not feel this way when they were their masks.