Stitches :: I Was Eleven :: "Words, words, words..."

Contrast:

- In this chapter a growth is found on David's neck. His mother repeatedly says that they don't enough money and that it cost too much through out the whole chapter. His dad gets a raise and instead of using it for the surgery on the growth, his mom and dad go out shopping every weekend for a while. They could care less about David's growth.

Question:

- Will David's parents realize that they are spending too much and not paying attention to David?

Journal: 

- From pages 138 - 147, the use of words in each of the frames is non-existent. In this book David feels as though a lot of the images really explain themselves. We as a reader don't need dialogue or narration on every page. Also, he wants us to think about if there was dialogue, what would we think it says. I think his choice to do this so far in the book, has really been effective. He encourages the reader to be more visual.

Stitches :: I Was Six :: Frames

Parallels:

- On page 87, David is helping his grandma make his bed. In a single frame there is a picture of Jesus on the cross. David asks his Grandma what it means. It looks as though it is looking at David in the scene.

- On page 104, after David's grandma scolded his hands with water for not eating. He goes to his bed. In the dark room he notices the cross above his bed again and Jesus is looking right at him. They give this scene one whole frame on the page. In his imagination, he is being judged.

Question:

- Why are David's parents splitting up and taking one child each?

Journal:

- On page 96, David had just had his hands scolded by his grandmother. There are only three frames on the page. One big one on the top that takes up half the page and two others side by side right under the top frame. In the top frame, David is sitting alone in the bathroom curled up and crying. It is the biggest frame because it shows him at his most vulnerable and fragile state. The two bottom ones aren't as big because he is just reflecting on what had just happened. Frames in this book vary page to page. Some pages have a whole row of small frames and some have just one big frame. The author organizes it like this to really bring out the important parts of the story.

Minority Report Still Image #19 - Analyzation

In this scene of Minority Report, John Anderton and Agatha had just escaped from the clutches of the D.C. police. Hidden under the mono-colored and dull umbrellas, the pre-crime police could not successfully capture John. We see from this still picture that the camera angle is a high angled shot. The two men are looking down over the crowd below, but it is not from their point of view. It is really more of the director's or 3rd person's view. The dull colors of gray, black and blue really make this scene very gloomy and bland. This scene is really trying to convey how everybody in 2054 has no expression of themselves and dress in plain colors. Civil liberties seem to have been taken away with the creation of pre-crime. There is no privacy left in the Washington D.C. area. The only thing keeping John Anderton hidden from the government is an umbrella.

Oedipus The King Summer Reading

To what extent is Oedipus responsible for his own fate in the play? Be prepared to discuss at least two examples from the text which lead you to believe he is or is not responsible.

- In the play, Oedipus is mildly responsible for his own fate, because of his pride mostly. He is such a great leader who wouldn’t even consider himself to have killed King Laius. When Tiresias is telling Oedipus that he was the killer, Oedipus denies it and says, “Blind, lost in the night, endless night that nursed you! You can’t hurt me or anyone else who sees the light - you can never touch me”(181). He is saying that he is too good of a person to even have done such a thing. Also Oedipus is also not responsible for his fate because of his predetermined path in life. This was bound to happen because of what the oracle said to his parents, “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see- you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!”(205).

How good a king is Oedipus?  In what ways does he excel as a leader?  In what ways does he fall short?

- Oedipus is a great king who is very smart, confident, and powerful. He excels at being a detective and listener of the people. Some ways he falls short is his over-confidence. When he was accused he was sure that it wasn’t him and was going to arrest anyone who thought it was him.

Since Oedipus is considered the quintessential tragic hero, then what would you argue is his tragic mistake?  In other words, what in his own character/personality or what wrong-headed action does he take which leads him to his ultimate downfall? Choose a particular flaw or action and explain its relation to his disgrace and exile.

- Oedipus tragic mistake was that he had too much pride and confidence therefore making him never think of himself that killed Laius. Instead, he accused everybody else who accused him, so he could point fingers. In his mind there was no way it was him who did it. Anger was also something that led to his downfall. He would get angry quick and jump to conclusions without thinking first about the situation at hand and that got people very irritated.

If we agree that Oedipus the King is about the role of fate and humans’ inability to escape destiny, in what ways does Minority Report, and the character of John Anderton in particular, support or refute Oedipus’ notion of destiny?  Think of two scenes that support your position.

- In Minority Report, it refutes Oedipus notion of destiny. In some scenes it shows John Anderton stopping someones horrible fate from happening. In Oedipus they basically say that you can’t escape your destiny, and in Minority Report they can. Another way they refute it is by altering how someone dies, like when the director kills someone when someone else should have.

The eyes are often associated not just with the act of seeing but also of revealing oneself to others. In the film, explain the different ways that eyes or the act of seeing are used for:  1. The Precogs, 2. John Anderton, 3. The culture of the world of the film.  

- The Precogs use their eyes to see what is about to happen. They can see into the future and see into someone elses future experiences. Like when one of the precogs touched John and told him all about his future.

- John Anderton at one point goes under eye replacing surgery and has to not rely on his eyes for once. For most of the film he had to use his eyes to get into the lab, watch videos of his son and survive. So for a couple hours that all got taken away and he had to try to rely on other things to carry on.

- People use their eyes to see every aspect of a film and absorb information going on in every scene.

The story upon which the movie is based was written in the 1950's.  The movie came out in 2002 but is set in 2054.  How much of the events/the attitudes of the movie do you see in contemporary American culture?  Where will be in 44 years?  Speculate on the direction in which our country is headed.  What future contingencies are we preparing for?  To what extent does our attempt to prepare for certain future events determine our own fate?

- A lot of the technology is already in American culture, and we are such a fast paced moving country that in 44 years I don’t doubt that many of our buildings and cars will look like that. For the future I feel like our main focus will be military and crime.

The Last Ten Movies I Saw

1.) White Squall
2.) Forrest Gump
3.) Olympus Has Fallen
4.) White Men Can't Jump
5.) Pain and Gain
6.) 2 Guns
7.) We're The Millers
8.) Yes Man
9.) Notting Hill
10.) Minority Report

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