Eggers Emulation.

The author wishes to first acknowledge two things:
1. Although the following story and it's details are true, the author does not condone any behavior that is either similar in action, similar in consequence or similar in stupidity.
2. The author wishes to acknowledge her tardiness on this assignment, and the actual convenience of said tardiness. You see, if the author had done the blog post on time, the chance to tell this story that lends itself so very well to Eggers' style would have been lost. That said, the author hopes that the tardiness can be forgiven due to the convenience of the situation.

Here is a dog that looks awkwardly similar to a towel....

It's the last day of spring break, 70 degrees outside, and 3:00 in the morning- well actually, 2:00 in the morning, in reality, because of the time change... but that is superfluous. Sitting in the living room of a friend's house, surrounded by a group of friends from high school can cause a dangerous kind of nostalgia. The kind of nostalgia that takes you back to the feeling of being in high school, being stupid, being a kid still, being carefree... and even careless. The nostalgia set in about 30 minutes after a small bout of drinking. Whenever drinking with these friends, we kept things completely classy. On this particular occasion, our drink special was 3 shots of Kamchatka, eyeball measured, in a coffee mug and served with a room temperature 2 liter of Cherry Coke, passed around, for chasing.
With this dangerous form of nostalgia, as well as the alcohol, coursing through our veins, we were ready for whatever the world could throw at us. After the unanimous decision, of those in the room, to play hide and go seek tag outside, we made our way out of the confines of the apartment complex and found ourselves across the street from the familiar sets of commercial buildings and the daycare center that sat across from Nikki's house since we've been friends. I stood by and watched as my friends caused a ruckus in the day care parking lot, jumping over a giant melting pile of snow, trying to remain responsible.
After they grew tired of the snow, my friends decided to climb the roofs of the commercial buildings; each had a 3-4 foot stone wall attached to a 45 degree angle roof, allowing the climber maximum clearance to climb. Having never seen an opportunity so perfect for climbing, I partook in the exploration and climbed the roof, knowing it wasn't the best idea. Looking down from the roof, we scanned the streets and the surroundings; everything was silent and still.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a fat man in a black jacket came around the corner of the next building over, looking intently in the bushes with his flashlight. It's a cop. Fuck. I knew this was a bad idea. What the fuck? This is the goddamn middle of Westerville, and I've even been pulled over within 100 feet of this building, of course the cops would come. I watch as two of my friends make the quickest escape I've ever seen, causing the loud scraping of shoes-on-shingles to give away our position. Knowing that I couldn't risk getting caught, Nikki decided to leave me and one other person to hide, giving himself up to the cop in an all too cheerful way. He is such a dumb ass. We're fucked. "Hey, you! Boy! What the hell are you doing up there? Get over here and sit your ass on the curb!" Great. The cop said "boy"... he's already decided that Nikki, a tall but lanky black kid, is guilty. "Okee dokee, sir!" How is Nikki so naive? At this point, we're on the other side of the roof, trying to stay concealed. Fuck. My first rooftop, and I'm going to go to jail for it. Fuck! There is no way I'm jumping off the roof. Alex is going to jump off the roof.... and Alex is also going to expect me to jump.... I should jump. Fuck! If I jump, my dumb ass is going to break something and not even be able to run away or maybe fall and hit my head and get knocked out. Fuck that, I'm not jumping. The cop keeps shining his flashlight into the parking lot of the building, causing us to panic then feel relief when the light did not come round the corner, each time. Eventually there will be 5 cop cars here and they will find us. I'm fucked. I'm going to get kicked out of school, I'm going to get thrown in jail, my parents will disown me, and probably not even send me cool stuff in jail, I'm so fucking fucked. I hear Nikki blabber some nonsense about star gazing by himself as he's handcuffed and shoved into the back of a cruiser. God damnit Nikki. At this point, Alex is on the edge of the roof, waiting to jump down, feeling the urgency as we know our distraction has worn out. Two beams of light flicker across the lot and come around the corner. Why did I wear this bright yellow hoodie? I'm immediately visible but try and flatten myself into the crease of the roof where two parts come together. The light hits my eyes, as I divert my gaze and see Alex, about two feet away, also blinded by the lights. We're caught. Fuck. The cops order us to come down on the other side, and as we do so, a lady cop comes out of the trees and starts screaming "DON'T MOVE! WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED, COME DOWN WITH YOUR HANDS UP! DON'T MOVE!" At the time, so not funny; right now, though, so funny. This lady cop thinks she's just caught some crazy bank robber or something way cooler than 3 twenty year olds, sitting on a roof. I see, as I predicted, 5 police cars, including one from a different township and a police SUV. FUCK! We get down and are immediately "detained"... see, first thing Alex says is "are we under arrest?" so the cops know that we know that they can't cuff us unless we're under arrest or they make up some reason to detain us, maybe we're a threat to their safety, but our knowledge of the proper procedures should not be flaunted because it will only give away the fact that each of us has had to deal with cops before, and know how it goes, or should go. I wish Alex knew that. Nikki is nowhere to be found. God, I hope they didn't already take him to HQ or where ever these men base their operations. Jesus I think this cop just pulled my arm out of its socket. Ow. I wish I had pushed my hair out of my face before being "detained". This one stupid hair is really bothering my chin right now and I'm going to freak out. FUCK! "We aren't going to file any charges, but as soon as your dumb ass friend over here gets those other two dumb ass friends of yours back here, and I chew all your dumb asses out, you'll be able to go." WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? A cop... a Westerville cop... being cool? I feel the weight of LIFE IN PRISON and KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL instantly fall off of my shoulders as I realize I'm going to walk away from this with nothing but maybe bruises from the handcuffs, and really great story to tell.


Fin.

Emulation: Woolf

Wow, I had saved my blog post as a draft and never returned to post it. :/
Better late than never, I suppose.
Sorry, Dave!


One evening, I sat in my room, thinking. Caught in between thoughts, I stopped to take in the silence, the peace, that surrounded me. I was abruptly jarred by an annoying whizzing sound, breaking the silence. Buzzing, whizzing, and clicking, I found the source of the sound to be a fly that had found its way into my room through my screen-less window which I had carelessly left open. The fly was trapped in the space between my window and the shade that covered the window, relentlessly trying to free itself from the small area. I tried my best to ignore the sound, yet found myself unsuccessful. Being afraid of bugs, or maybe just incredibly repulsed by them, I decided to leave the room, knowing that opening and closing the door would cause wind to rattle the window shade; as if to tell the fly he was unwanted. I returned to find that the fly had changed venues and now occupied the space around the ugly fluorescent light, buzzing and whizzing around, colliding with the light, flying away, then repeating; his presence now completely undeniable. Annoyed with this unwelcome guest, and also noticing a drop in the room temperature, I shut the window. "HA, try getting out now, stupid," I thought to myself, crawling into bed.
The next morning I woke up, shivering cold, to realize that I had left the window cracked. I thought about how warm I might be if I had just closed the window entirely, cursing my stupidity. I remembered the fly, and wondered whether he had taken notice of the drop in temperature and fled the scene; in fact, I hoped he had. Little house flies, like my visitor, only have a life span of about 24-48 hours, give or take. As annoying and unwelcome my guest may have been, his intentions were not that of malice. I thought about what life would be like if I, too, only had a 24-48 hour life span. I certainly wouldn't be considerate of the monstrous being whose house I was invading; nor would I care whether my explorations bothered the monster. I would care about one thing, and one thing alone: comfort. I opened the shade, feeling guilty of my hatred for this simple creature, hoping it would fly out so I could officially welcome it as my guest for the remainder of its short life. As the shade opened, a little black body fell onto the window sill, silently, dead. I opened the window and pushed its lifeless body till it tumbled through the air and finally dropped to the ground, sadly.

Short Takes #3

The two essays I read were:
"Book War" by Wang Ping
and
"Contributor's Note" by Michael Martone

In her essay "Book War", Wang Ping describes her first encounter with fairy tales, leading to a life long love of them. She goes outside and finds her neighbor sitting outside in the freezing cold reading what appears to be a Maoist book. Upon further investigation, she discovers that the girl is actually reading The Little Mermaid. Occurring during a time when books where seen as "poisonous weeds", being burned and banned right and left, the young girl becomes incredibly defensive, knowing that if she were to be turned in, her family would suffer the consequences. When they discover their shared love of books, they start an "underground book exchange network", sharing such tales as Grimm's Fairy Tales, and Romeo and Juliet. When Ping's mother discovered that she had dug up these books from their safe hiding place, she orders Ping to burn the books in the stove, in fear of the government. Ping calls her mother her "enemy", despite the fact that she's just trying to look out for Ping and their whole family. Angry with her mother, and sad that her books had been destroyed, Ping goes to the chicken coop to sulk. Ping comes to the realization that the stories she has read and absorbed are now alive inside her, "As tears flowed, the stories became alive from inside. They flapped their wings and flew out of my mouth like mourning doves." She realizes that even if she may not be allowed to have the books, the government cannot stop her from spreading the magic of the tales she's read to her loved ones. She creates an oral tradition of telling these stories, compensating for the fact that she cannot have the books, and comes to the conclusion that, in this way, she has "won the war".

Better late than never....

Ah I realized that I never wrote my music post, so I figured better late than never!

As much as I love him and have SO MUCH to say about his music, I know I've already bored you to death with my insane love for my man, Tech N9ne. That said, I'm going to take this in a different direction.

Although I don't play and instruments and don't have a good voice, music is one of the most important things in my life. Nothing else in the world can give me the feelings that music can. It's indescribable.
You already are well acquainted with my love of Tech N9ne, but my musical taste goes SO much deeper. Over the years, I've gone through phases of music, moving from genre to genre and back again. All of this has accumulated to my crazy taste in music.
I'm going to set up a little timeline of my music to show you how I got from A to B.

Eighth grade:
This is where it really started. This was when it was cool to be emo, and Ohio was for lovers. I was obsessed with bands like Hawthorne Heights, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Kill Hannah, and From First to Last. (Little fun fact: From First to Last's lead singer, Sonny Moore, is Skrillex. For all who didn't know.). I discovered Saosin in 8th grade, and they continued to be my favorite band for about two years. I also got super into christian rock/christian pop punk with bands like Reliant K and Hawk Nelson.

Freshman year:
I continued to listen to my old favorites, but also picked up a taste for "butt rock". For those who don't know, "butt rock" is.... hard to explain. The most stereotypical "butt rock" examples I can think of are Creed and Three Days Grace. I always hated Creed but Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Atreyu and Skillet were some of my favorites. After my dad took me to my first concert (Kill Hannah) in 8th grade, he picked up my taste in music and I also adopted some of his favorites. He discovered "butt rock" before me, and I owe this year of my musical taste to good ole Phil. My dad and I bond over music more than anything.

Sophomore year and Junior year:
Probably the greatest years of my musical tastes. I got really into pop punk and whatever genre you wanna call all of that. I discovered Forever the Sickest Kids, who remain to this day, one of my favorite bands. I listened to 3Oh!3, All Time Low, Motion City Soundtrack, Paramore, Breathe Carolina, etc etc etc. I could go on for days. This was also the time period that I discovered Atmosphere. It's a group of not rappers but "Rhyme Sayers". I'd highly recommend them. Much like Tech N9ne, they have a song for anyone of any taste and so much versatility. Speaking of versatility, Hollywood Undead must be mentioned. They remain one of my favorite bands to this day. They rap, they sing, they do acoustic, they do rock, they're hilarious, they're emo as hell, they're just wonderful.

Senior year:
My love of Tech N9ne exploded this year. Please don't be confused in thinking I didn't listen to him before. I've listened to him since I discovered him in 8th grade. But this is the year that really really deepened my love for Tech N9ne. I also discovered a taste for the Beatles, Bob Marley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Queen. I hadn't delved into oldies much before then but I was pleased when I did.

Freshman year:
One word: Dubstep. Nuff said.

Today:
I've retained my love for the emo music, the butt rock, the pop punk, the oldies, the dubstep, and of course throughout all these years I've always been a big fan of rap/hip-hop (no ignorant rap though). I've more recently gotten into Foster the People, Two Door Cinema Club, and Imagine Dragons. More indie stuff.

So, when I say I can dig it all, I truly can dig it all. I love music.

BTW listen to this song. I guarantee it will melt your heart. Without a doubt, the most beautiful song I've ever heard. Please give it a listen. AND TELL ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVED IT. :D

Rest in Peace.

After being inspired by Elizabeth's essay, I decided to write my blog post/"mini essay" along the same lines.

In early April of 2004, my grandma Connie was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. If you've ever known someone who has had it, you'll know that it's one of the most aggressive types of cancer. In other words, we knew she wasn't going to make it. Having just lost her father the previous August, and given birth to my youngest brother the previous December, this was an emotional atom bomb dropped on my mother. My family, as a whole, visited my grandma for the last time in the hospital (it wasn't a hospital or a nursing home... it was more like a place they take you to die comfortably) about two weeks after her diagnosis. Upon entering the room, I was shocked. My grandma could not get out of bed, and the tumor in her pancreas had grown to the size of a pregnant belly. She was barely able to hold Jacob, as he was just 4 months old, and she was so frail. In the span of just two weeks my jolly adorable saint-like grandma had become sick and for the first time I realized how old she was.

She was always so happy and energetic before. She called me "Katydid". She called hamburgers "hamburgs" and whenever anyone had a tummy ache, her first question was, "do you need to take a BM?". She had been the one to stay with my sister when I was born, and stay with me and my sister when Michael was born, and once again stayed with the three of us when Jacob was born. My mom's whole side of the family always went to her house for Thanksgiving and most Christmas'. I remember one Christmas in particular when my brother, Michael, put his head between the bars of a railing that separated the dining room from the living room and got stuck. One year, after celebrating the birthdays of my uncle, my cousin, and Michael, there was a tornado. I remember my whole (immediate) family and my grandma, all huddled in her bathroom because she didn't have a basement. It was truly a miracle, her house had no serious damage despite the fact that the tornado had gone right between her house and the next door neighbors'. The rest of the neighborhood was a mess, but my grandma's cute little ranch style house remained sturdy as ever-- with the exception of a few broken shutters. My grandma always had the best movies for us kids, too. My parents never let us watch any good shows but my grandma always put on Ninja Turtles, the Brave Little Toaster, or a Tom and Jerry movie. My mom always got so mad about it, but grandma just laughed and continued to do it. My grandma had tons of art throughout her house from her world travels. She had a shelves of little figurines and sculptures and other little things like that. There was one in particular that all of us kids (my siblings and my two cousins) had a fascination with. It was a tiny glass porcupine. It was so incredibly fragile, along with all of the other things on her shelves, but the suggestion of "child-proofing" her house was outlandish to her. I always hated sleeping at her house. I mean, I loved it, but the curtains in her room gave me horrible nightmares. She always had the greatest blankets though, which probably largely contributed to the fact that I now love blankets. I have very high standards for my blankets. My favorite blanket on this earth, which I'm currently nested in, is one that came from her house. It's really ugly and not soft at all, but around the edges it has "softies", as we always called them. The little satin-like edges of a blanket. This blanket has the softest softies of any blanket I've ever had. The only things I asked for, as we went through her house after the funeral trying to claim the littlest pieces of grandma Connie to hold on to, were the "blankies with softies" and a little model of St.Basil's Cathedral that I always loved.

For the next two weeks after my family visited my grandma, my mom continued to visit her often. She lived two hours away, but she knew time was limited so she went every chance she got. At the time, I was in fourth grade and the only one still home schooled. Because of this, I was able to go see her more than the other kids of the family. As the end of April approached, my grandma grew weaker and weaker by the day. The cancer not only ate away at her body and her abilities, but it diminished her always cheerful spirit. When my mom got news from her brother, who lived much closer to my grandma, that she should come down and say goodbye, I insisted on going along. We stayed at my grandma's house while we were in Cincinnati, but it didn't feel like my grandma's house. Without my grandma in it, it was just a house. We went to the hospital to see her the next afternoon. When we got to her room, she was half asleep. My mom went to the side of her bed and touched her shoulder to let her know we were there. She was in and out of a daze. I stood behind my mom, feeling very timid. My grandma opened her eyes and saw me. "Little Katydid," she said weakly, as she lifted her hand out to me as best she could. I walked up and took her hand carefully, afraid that she might break into a million pieces in the frail state she was in. She asked me who I had brought with me, not recognizing my mom because she had dyed her hair since the last time they had seen each other. My mom said, "it's me, mom. Julie." I could tell that broke my mom's heart. But suddenly, my grandma's eyes grew wide as she looked passed us, at a chair in the corner. "Who's that?" she said to us. "What? Who's who, mom?" my mom said, suddenly realizing that she wasn't looking at us. "That man... in the chair... who is he?" my grandma asked. "What man, mom? Who do you see?" my mom asked, concerned. "The man in the chair. He's here to visit me." she replied, still beaming at the empty chair. "Is he a nice man?" my mom asked. I had the feeling that my mom was just playing along with my what she thought was a delusion. After watching her dad, my grandpa George, suffer with Alzheimer's for months before his death, my mom was used to delusions. I don't think my grandma ever answered the question, but after she stopped looking at the empty chair, there was a peacefulness about her, about the situation, that wasn't there before. Being so bewildered by what had just happened, the rest of the visit was a blur. I remember saying goodbye, though, and kissing her on the cheek. As we were leaving the room, my uncle and his family were entering the room. We said our hellos and whatnot, I took my last glance at my grandma Connie, and left the room. We drove straight home from the hospital, back to Columbus in silence.

Around 5 in the morning, the phone rang. I laid in bed, knowing who it was and what they were saying already. As I heard the phone hang up, I peaked my head out of my room and saw my mom on the couch crying, wrapped in my dad's arms. I went back to bed.



R.I.P.

More than you needed to know... and then some....

THIS IS NOT MY BLOG ABOUT MUSIC

I know I already gave you a page of footnotes to help you understand a little more of my essay but I thought some more stuff would be helpful. Of course, you don't have to read this/comment on it, it was just something I wanted to do in case anyone was interested. I may go a bit over the top with all of this but I ultimately want to write a book about him. I believe wholeheartedly that he deserves a biography just as much as any other artist out there.

This is a picture of him at the actual show I talk about in the essay.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON TECH N9NE
It's easy to see, from these images, (which are actually fairly mild compared to some of his outfits/costumes) where he gets the awful reputations he's dealt with throughout his career. Some of the reputations hes had: Cult leader, devil worshiper, psychopath, sociopath, "freak", "scary", "evil". His originality and the way he's chosen to present himself is often mistaken for deviance and satanism.
Despite the awful and unjust reputations he has received, he's a pretty normal guy. He has a family, he's very religious, he probably even does his own laundry!
I will say, in the earlier years of his career (which began officially in the late 90s), he went for the "shock factor". Face paint and red spiked hair; Entering the stage wearing robes as if he were a priest while the rest of is appearance was devilish. "Killer Clown" was a nickname he used to use. His dark lyrics coupled with his style is what caused all the prejudices. He was ridiculed and a lot of people wouldn't listen to him because of his appearance.
As the years went on, he slowly changed his appearance for a number of reasons. (However, I must say, before I give some of the reasons, he never once lost any of his lyrical or stylistic originality. That is to say, every change he made was for himself, because it was what he wanted to do. He has never let the opinions of others dictate his style, which is one of the reasons I love him so much).  He stopped dying/spiking his hair and beard because it was ruining his hair. He changed the subject matter of his raps from things like drugs, sex, partying, and "haters", to darker and heavier lyrics. He's like the "emo" of rap music. The change became most apparent, in my opinion, when he released the album K.O.D... which stands for King of Darkness. If you look at an early song of his such as "Caribou Lou", it's about drinking and partying, now contrast that with a more recent song such as "The Noose" which is a song he wrote after visiting troops in Iraq about the war and how sad the world has become. The change is radical, but remains entirely his own style. Another reason for his change was family reasons. Although he has made some changes, he still performs every show with his face paint and a crazy set.


I also mentioned in my essay the
"Juggalo"

Here's two typical juggalos

The Juggalo logo

If anyone is interested in checking out Tech N9ne, I'm going to provide some suggestions for songs to listen to. I really suggest at least listening to one. He's one of the top 5 fastest rappers in the world so needless to say, he's pretty sick. Since he is so versatile, I'll categorize them and give you a few of each. The ones I HIGHLY recommend and think that anyone could appreciate, I'll underline.

Sad/Dark/Emo/Cult:
"Low"
"Alone"
"The Noose" (best appreciated when you watch the video and understand the story behind it)
"Cult Leader"
"K.O.D."
"Hope for a Higher Power"

Hip hop/Rap (basically if you like the genre, you'll like these songs. they're more "normal"):
"Planet Rock 2k"
"Caribou Lou"
"Dysfunctional"
"Who Do I Catch" (I highly recommend this video)

"Strange Music Box"
"Midwest Choppers 2"
"Like Yeah"
"Sickology 101"
"Einstein"
"Everybody Move"
"Drill Team"
"Earregular"
"Sorry N Shit"
"Now Its On"

Featuring famous people:
"Fuck Food" (t-pain and lil wayne)
"Pornographic" (snoop dogg and e-40)
"Am I A Psycho?" (Hopsin and B.O.B)
"Jellysickle" (e-40)
"Demons" (Three6Mafia)

Messed up/Funny/Wicked: (these songs are not serious, they're jokes basically. all for the shock factor)
"In the Trunk"
"Pinocchio"
"T9X" (this song isn't really in the category. it's just a ridiculous song about a crazy night of ingesting an unfathomable amount of various drugs and partying)

I apologize if this incredibly extensive and seemingly pointless blog post wasted your time. As I said before, I want to write a book on Tech N9ne and as you can see, I could write about him for days!

Short Takes

Essays:
"Planet Unflinching" by Kelly Cherry
"From Two or Three Things I Know for Sure" by Dorothy Allison

In her essay, Dorothy Allison unmercifully but honestly describes the family she comes from. She sums up her family saying, "My family has a history of death and murder, grief and denial, rage and ugliness- the women of my family most of all" (93). She explains going through life with a predetermined destiny to be ugly, and good for nothing but child bearing; it was in her blood. Because of their ugliness, women in her family were subjected to verbal abuse from the men in the family, constantly reminding them of how ugly they are. At the end of the essay, she expresses her desire to live differently than the rest of her family. She dramatically ends the essay on a powerful note saying, "The women I loved most in the world horrified me. I did not want to grow up to be them. . . every night I prayed a man's prayer: Lord, save me from them. Do not let me become them" (96). She obviously loves her family, but the thought of settling for a predetermined fate which would lead to a life of oppression and self-image problems terrifies her.