Farewell

Short Story 2: "Rock Springs"



A brooding Richard Ford

Odds and Ends:

 

If you have not taken the Dante essays, you must schedule an appointment with me to do so ASAP!

 

If you did not discuss the Oates story, you must schedule an appointment with me to do so ASAP.

If you will not be in class on Wednesday to discuss "Rock Springs," you must schedule an appointment with me to do so ASAP.

Have "Rock Springs" read for tomorrow! 

Remember: Thursday is Mr. Wermeling's last day! I will arrive around 7:30 on Wednesday and Thursday, and will stay quite late both days. I will be in the English office 3rd and 10th, and will be in Room 260 for 5th lunch. If you would like to visit me during 7th or 8th, you may schedule an appointment with me in the Writing Lab by clicking here. 

 

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From Drew Perry's take on "Rock Springs" for a series of pieces called "Stories We Love" for Fiction Writers Review:

It’s a story about entropy. About falling further and faster apart. About hanging on even when it’s well past time to hang on. It’s a story about race and capitalism and crime and love and marriage, all the Big American Things—Do you see what happens? This is meant to be some kind of craft talk. I’m supposed to somehow point to the ways in which the story glues itself together, and I can’t do it. “Rock Springs” is a story I understand only through its moments: through the woman and her damaged son in that glowing trailer park, through the cat staring up at Earl like he “was the face of the moon,” through Edna delivering to Earl, after it’s certain they’ll break up, one of the most wrenching, most darkly funny, most beautiful lines I know in all of letters: “Eat your chicken, Earl,” she says. “Then we can go to bed. I’m tired, but I’d like to make love to you anyway. None of this is a matter of not loving you, you know that.” It’s that line, that chicken line, that returns to me again and again. It’s one of the handful of lines from the various stories I know that’s always, always with me, a reminder that even when you are, in fact, chasing the Big Things, your characters still have to eat and want.

And here we’ve reached the end of all this without time for me even to talk about the end of the story, a fiercely triumphant last note that’s as much about literature itself as it is about Earl, more broken now than he was back on the highway when the oil light came on. There he is, down in the parking lot, and he looks back up at the hotel, at Edna and Cheryl, and at us, really: “What would you think a man was doing if you saw him in the middle of the night looking in the windows of cars in the parking lot of the Ramada Inn? Would you think he was trying to get his head cleared? Would you think he was trying to get ready for a day when trouble would come down on him? Would you think his girlfriend was leaving him? Would you think he had a daughter? Would you think he was anybody like you?” He is, of course. He is the car thief inside each and every one of us.

CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF "ROCK SPRINGS"
--

"Rock Springs" Prep Activity:

- Dissect one prominent symbol in "Rock Springs." How does the symbol function? What does it contribute to the piece?

-What does "Rock Springs" say about:

• criminality (Is Earl a criminal? Is Earl evil?)
• responsibility and adulthood
• fatherhood
• masculinity
• race
• consumerism
• womanhood (How are women portrayed in the story?)

- "Rock Springs" was published in 1987. What do we know about America in the late 80's? How might this impact the events of "Rock Springs?"

- What do we make of the scene with Earl and the woman with the phone? Is this scene allegorical?

- In what ways is "Rock Springs" similar to "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

Short Story 1: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

This week we will be reading Joyce Carol Oates' 1966 short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

Brain Drop

Answer this question: What is Bob Dylan's classic 1965 tune "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" about? In your response, please note at least ONE example of figurative language: metaphor, simile, analogy, allusion, imagery, etc. How does this example of figurative language contribute to the overall meaning of the piece?

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense
Take what you have gathered from coincidence
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home
All your reindeer armies, are all going home
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

Group Work:

Create small groups of two or three students. Complete these three tasks.

1. Come to a consensus about what the song means. Why? 
2. Draw a particularly evocative couplet, image, or scene from the song.
3. Attempt to solve the mystery: Who is Baby Blue?




Other thoughts on Dylan and "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

-Dylan and youth culture of the 60's
-Dylan and Arnold Friend
- "The vagabond who’s rapping at your door/ Is standing in the clothes that you once wore"

Short Story Micro Unit

Short Story Micro Unit (April 13^th – April 23^rd)

I am a second semester senior. You are a second semester senior. We’re all second semester seniors. Our young lives are on the cusp of some seismic changes. As such, I have decided to occupy our final two weeks together with two short stories that address concerns relevant to our current condition. As we read these short stories, please consider this question: “What does it mean to be an adult?” Think about notions of independence, maturity, and agency. When does one leave childhood?     

Texts: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Joyce Carol Oates
            “Rock Springs” Richard Ford

Note: Both texts will be provided for you in print. You do not need to purchase any texts for this micro unit. I have found a pdf of Joyce Carol Oates’ story; it is posted on the blog.

Assessments: Engagement with this micro unit will assessed through two graded discussions. As such, it is critical that you attend class on discussion days: this Friday (4/17) and next Wednesday (4/22). Further, it is critical that you thoughtfully engage in these discussions, so do prepare yourself accordingly. Each discussion will be worth 25 points. You will be assessed based on the quality of your comments.  If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know after class! J  

Calendar:

Monday, 4/13: Introduce unit & hand out “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?”

Tuesday, 4/14: Joyce Carol Oates Lecture/Reading Day

Wednesday, 4/15: Have “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” Completely Read/small group activity

Thursday, 4/16: Discussion prep activity

Friday, 4/17: Discussion 1) “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

Monday, 4/20: Introduce Richard Ford’s “Rock Springs”

Tuesday, 4/21: Richard Ford Lecture/ “Rock Springs” reading day

Wednesday, 4/22: Discussion 2) “Rock Springs”

Thursday, 4/23: Mr. Wermeling’s last day/ debrief

Friday: Mr. Charters takes over

 

 

Allegory Discussion

Allegories are typically used as literary devices or rhetorical devices that convey deeper meanings through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey.

Examples?

Is there a difference between allegory and extended metaphor?

Allegory Discussion:

Take the first half of class to prep for these discussion questions: "How is allegory utilized in The Inferno?" Please note not only the allegory of the entire narrative, but the smaller allegories within the various circles and bolgias. Please find at least three piece of evidence to support your arguments. Consider the most recent reading, up to Canto XXXIV.

3/25: XXIII - XXV

 
Brain Drop: Choose your own adventure

Bernie Madoff was an extremely successful operator of a wealth management business that eventually became a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Madoff was arrested in 2008 after admitting that his business was actually a massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is now considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history, ruining the lives of thousands of people by defrauding them out of billions of dollars. Madoff claimed sole responsibility for the scam. 

What circle of hell do you think Dante would confine Madoff to? Why? What is the symbolic retribution (poetic justice) Madoff would endure?

James Verone, an unemployed 59-year-old with a bad back, a sore foot and an undiagnosed growth on his chest, limped into a bank in Gastonia, N.C., this month and handed the teller a note, explaining that this was an unarmed robbery, but she'd better turn over $1 and call the cops. That, he figured, would be enough to get himself arrested and sent to prison for a few years, where he could take advantage of the free medical care...

Would Dante damn James Verone to bolgia seven of the Malebolge? Why or why not?


Group Work:

Each group will be responsible for three tasks.

Task 1: Detail the events of the canto and explain their significance

Task 2: Provide any necessary information (critical vocabulary, historical notes, etc.). Why is this information necessary?

Task 3: Respond to the question attached to your group’s text assignment. 

Group One: Canto XX – Why does Virgil scold Dante in this canto? Why does this canto discuss the history of Virgil at some length?

Group Two: Canto XXI – This canto (along with the following) is oftentimes known as one of the “Gargoyle Cantos.” Why? What role do the gargoyles play?

Group Three: Canto XXII – According to Ciardi, the “Gargoyle Cantos” are unique: “At no other point in the Commedia does Dante give such free rein to his coarsest style.” What is meant by “coarsest style? Find examples. Why does Dante deploy this “coarse” style?

Group Four: Canto XXIII – Why might the Malacoda lie to Virgil and Date? How does Virgil react? If we take Virgil to represent “human reason,” what might this scene suggest about Dante’s thoughts on human reason?

Group Five: Canto XXIV – Dante is surprised that Fucci, “a man of blood and anger,” is punished in the eight circle for thievery. What do you make of this distinction? Does Fucci suffer a fitting retribution?

Group Work will be assessed thusly:

Student did not share information: 0 Points

Student did share information, but not in a way which substantially contributes to the concerns of the text (Example: student simply reiterated a plot point from a previous canto): 3 Points

Student shared information that substantially contributed to the intellectual conversation: 5 Points

EVERYBODY MUST PARTICPATE!

3/24: Canto XX- CANTO XXII

Brain Drop

Read this excerpt from a recent Reuters article:

Evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping, who rallied thousands of followers and stirred an international media frenzy with a failed doomsday prophecy two years ago, has died at his home near San Francisco, a spokeswoman for his radio outlet said on Tuesday.

Camping drew international followers and headlines in 2011 with broadcasts predicting the biblical Judgment Day would occur on May 21 of that year, launching an end-of-the-world countdown that prompted some believers to spend their life's savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven.

 

Should false prophets like Harold Camping be held accountable for the damages that are caused by their fortune-telling? Why or why not? What would be a fitting retribution for Harold Camping?


Vocab to know:

Grafter- Trading political powers for money.

Writing Activity:

Write a short (one page) essay comparing your original example of poetic justice for the eight circle of hell (completed in your composition notebooks on 3/18) to what Dante depicts in Inferno. Where does your writing converge with Dante’s? Where do the writings diverge? Please utilize our vocabulary (examples: poetic justice, tenor and vehicle in metaphor, juxtaposition, etc.) in your response.

3/23: Canto XVIII – Canto XIX

Brain Drop

Read this excerpt from an article titled "Holy Relics: Commerce in saints’ bits and pieces–long forbidden by the Catholic Church–is thriving,” by Monte Burke for Forbes magazine.

Broomer sells the skulls of martyrs ($4,500 each). She sells the teeth of saints ($300). For $975 you can get what may be a tiny splinter from the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified. It takes a certain amount of blind faith to believe all the claims attached to religious artifacts.

Other items in stock include, ostensibly, pieces of the body of Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower, made into paste; clothing worn by Saint Anthony of Padua; and a “touched” nail, meaning a nail that once touched a nail from the Crucifixion.

Broomer, 48, dressed in tennis shoes and a long brown skirt, points eagerly to a closed box. “I just got in three bone fragments of St. Francis of Assisi,” she says. “He will go very quickly. “

Around her are shelves packed with gilt bronze boxes–many in the form of churches–and silver monstrances. Within each are the objects that have become Broomer’s passion and fascination during her two decades as a dealer: pieces of Catholic saints, or artifacts related to them.

Broomer believes she is one of only a handful of specialists who deal full-time in relics and reliquaries (vessels that contain relics), though Christie’s and other auction houses offer them for sale occasionally. Christie’s has no auctions pending but recently sold, through its icon department, a 19th-century reliquary holding a stone from Mount Tabor–the site of Christ’s transfiguration–for $430,000.

The trade is more ingrained in Europe, what with its myriad monasteries and convents. But there’s money to be made off U.S. collectors, too. As U.S. Catholic congregations shrink and churches close, deaccessioned relics are finding their way onto Ebay.

Vendors have a lingo in which relics are classified into grades. “First class” pertains to body parts of saints–a fingernail of the Apostle Paul, say, or a strand of the Virgin Mary’s hair. Items (supposedly) touched by Jesus often are first class. The second class encompasses the relics of lesser figures–Mother Teresa’s tennis shoes. The third class has items that have touched something first class–the “touched” nail described above, for instance.

If and when Pope Benedict XVI is beatified, his visit to the U.S. will have created a host of relics. Anything he touched will count–a business card, a rosary, a faucet. 

Some first-class relics come with a red papal seal (meaning they’ve been vetted by the Vatican) and papers, usually in Latin, describing the item and its history. But if saints’ bones can be faked, so can pieces of paper. Broomer says that while her clients care about authentication, in the end, “They want to believe."

Prompt: Do you find the selling of religious artifacts unethical? Why or why not? Would YOU ever buy a religious artifact? Would YOU ever SELL a religious artifact? What if you could never be one hundred percent sure the artifacts you are selling are genuine?

Lecture:

The Canto begins with the poets dismounting from Geryon: The Monster of Fraud.

 

Land in 8^th Circle of Hell, called MALEBOLGE (The Evil Ditches) and divided into 10 bolgias.

 

Bolgia One: Panderers and Seducers

What does PANDERER mean in this context?

Yes, Panderer may mean somebody who caves to someone else’s whims in a crass way, but could there be ANOTHER meaning?

Let’s look for clues. Remember, all of Dante’s punishment are example of symbolic retribution, or Poetic Justice. How are the Panderers punished?

(Note that in Canto XVIII's summary, it is insinuated that there may be a possible sexual connotations of the horns of the demons that torment the Panderers.)

Look at the text, starting at line 52:

Dante recognizes Venedico Caccianemico of Bologna and asks him how he ended up in MALEBOLGE... 

And he replied: “I speak unwillingly,

But something in your living voice, in which

I hear the world again, stirs and compels me.

It was I who brought the fair Ghisola ‘round

To serve the will and lust of the Marquis

However sordid that old tale may sound…

…

And as he spoke, one of those lashes fell

Across his back, and a demon cried, “Move on,

You pimp, there are no women here to sell.”

Question: what does Panderer mean in this context? Answer: an archaic meaning of pandering is a person who solicits for a prostitute, or a pimp.

What does SIMONY mean?

Think back to the Brain Drop.  

Simony is named after Simon Magus, referenced in Peter Acts 18:18-20

And when Simon saw that through laying on of hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying 'Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost’. But Peter said unto him ‘Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.

Worksheet prompt:

How does Dante seem to regard the damned? Do Dante’s sentiments fluctuate or remain stagnant? Consider Dante’s opinions in CANTO XIX as compared to his behavior in in CANTO XV. Use textual evidence (quotes) to back up your points. Can you detect any differences between Dante THE CHARACTER and Dante THE POET of the text? 

 

A Nice Place to Visit

Poetic Justice: an outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded usually in a manner peculiarly or ironically appropriate

INFERNO READING SCHEDULE (TENTATIVE)

Dante's Inferno: What Do We Know?

Today's Agenda:

• Read the "Introduction" of The Inferno. Take notes in your composition notebooks. What do you know about Dante Alighieri and the text? What would you like to know more about?
• Once the class has finished reading and taking notes, a volunteer will lead the class in a discussion of the "Introduction." The volunteer will select a scribe to take notes on the white board.

The Inferno: The Introduction

Dante and Virgil in Hell, Adolphe Bougereau

Today's Agenda:

• Begin to engage with some of the longitudinal thematic concerns of Dante's Inferno.
• Introduce the rhyming verse stanza form Terza Rima.

Brain Drop:

(7 Minutes)
In Dante's The Inferno, nine circles of hell are detailed. Imagine you are designing a hell of your own. For this writing exercise, please compartmentalize all human evils into nine "circles," ranking them numerically. For our purposes, nine will be the "most evil," and one will be the "least evil." Please give one piece of evidence in the form of a "real world" example for each evil you choose.

Group Work:

As a group, compare and discuss your brain drops. Elect one group scribe to write down the answer to these questions:

1) Where did the group agree? Are there any "evils" that emerge in everyone's nine circles?
2) Where did the group disagree?
3) Repeat the brain drop activity as a group. Create nine circles of hell that the entire group agrees with. You will be asked to share your ideas with the class.

Exit Slip:

(Final 10 Minutes of Class)
Dante is credited with inventing Terza Rima, a form of three-line rhyming poetry. In Terza Rima, the middle line of the first stanza rhymes with the first and third line of the second stanza.

Here is the pattern:

ABA, BCB, CDC, DED...etc. There is no limit to the number of lines.

Here is an example of Terza Rima in Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ode to the West Wind:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, (a)

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead (b)

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, (a)

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, (b)

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, (c)

Who chariotest to their dark wintery bed (b)

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, (c)

Each like a corpse within its grave, until (d)

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow (c)

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (d)

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) (e)

With living hues and odours plain and hill: (d)

 
 Write a poem in the Terza Rima form that details the nine circles of hell from your brain drop OR your group work. See how many lines you can produce before the period ends.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: My Favorite Romantic

Nonfiction Essay Writing

Chiune Sugihara

Listen to this story and take notes. After the story has concluded you will have 10 minutes to write a short, one page essay about the tale. This exercise is designed to encourage the skills necessary for success on the nonfiction paper.

Metaphors We Live By

Brain Drop: Is life a journey?




Metaphors will be littered throughout your selected nonfiction texts. Try identifying some metaphors from the three short nonfiction texts we looked at in class. After identifying the source and target, wax philosophical about what the metaphor does rhetorically. What sort of picture does the metaphor paint in your head? Refer to our discussions on aesthetics, voice, and style.

For those of you who were not here on Wednesday, please print out and complete the text below:

Name:

Period:                                                                                                                        

Find the Metaphor

Trail by Fire

1)      By now, both investigators had a clear vision of what had happened. Someone had poured liquid accelerant throughout the children’s room, even under their beds, then poured some more along the adjoining hallway and out the front door, creating a “fire barrier” that prevented anyone from escaping; similarly, a prosecutor later suggested, the refrigerator in the kitchen had been moved to block the back-door exit.

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

 

2)      Dozens of studies have shown that witnesses’ memories of events often change when they are supplied with new contextual information. Itiel Dror, a cognitive psychologist who has done extensive research on eyewitness and expert testimony in criminal investigations, told me, “The mind is not a passive machine. Once you believe in something—once you expect something—it changes the way you perceive information and the way your memory recalls it.”

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

 

3)      She wrote to Webb, who said that she could see him, and they met in the prison visiting room. A man in his late twenties, he had pallid skin and a closely shaved head; his eyes were jumpy, and his entire body seemed to tremble. A reporter who once met him described him to me as “nervous as a cat around rocking chairs.”

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

Nick Cave

4)      This is Cave at his best, creating new mythology out of 20th Century pop culture fragments; at turns saucer eyed with terror and then chisel faced with threat like Harry Powell, the tattooed preacher from Night Of The Hunter. The Bad Seeds stripped down to Harvey, Bargeld and Adamson sounded as hungry as they looked.

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

 

5)      The first album From Her To Eternity was tune parched and pulsed like a migraine but was not a collection of dirges by any stretch of the imagination. The band showed immense restraint, creating acres of space between a clicking snare, the occasional baroque organ flourish and the creaking scrape of sweaty guitar strings. Cave swelled to fill this space like a recently summoned demon. He was the man of many voices. He crooned, wailed, warbled, wheedled, pleaded, hectored, admonished, raved, spluttered and shouted. His true offspring isn't Gerard Way or some other emo sheep in goth wolf's clothing but in fact Li'l Wayne. Cave is Old Jeezy. Old Wheezy.”

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

Consider the Lobster

6)      And it’s true that they [lobsters] are garbagemen of the sea, eaters of dead stuff,⁴ although they’ll also eat some live shellfish, certain kinds of injured fish, and sometimes each other.

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

 

7)      The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).

 

Metaphor:

Source:

Target:

What does this metaphor do?

Composition Notebooks: Creative Nonfiction



A bit of artistic inspiration: James Baldwin.

Since we did not get to the final part of the nonfiction activities yesterday, I would like to wrap it up today.

A) In your composition notebooks, write a short "nonfiction" piece that emulates one of these styles. Tell me which piece you are attempting to recreate. Feel free to write about whatever your heart desires. Here are some prompts you could work with:

1. Discuss one glaring social issue. Why is it a problem? How should it be remedied?
2. Describe a person who has had a large impact on your life but is no longer in contact with you. Why is this person important? Where did they go? Do you miss this person?
3. Review a recent film, television show, video game, or book.
4. Tell a story from your childhood.

B) Please also write a short rationale. Which piece of writing did you choose to emulate? What specific aspects of the piece's style or voice are you attempting to mirror?

If you complete the activity before the end of class, please place your composition notebook on my desk and quietly work on your nonfiction projects.

More Voice

Brain Drop:

Listen to this story. This time, do not close your eyes. Instead, write anything you notice about how the story is told. Do you notice any framing devices? Try imaging what this story would like look as a written text. (Note: if you click the link, you can actually read the transcript.) Please write your notes in your composition notebooks. What genre would you call this piece? Yes, nonfiction, but be more specific. What about the Gavagan piece from yesterday?

Once the story is completed, chat with a classmate next to you. What did they notice? Write their observations in your composition notebook as well. (Note: I want to see everyone participating. I will look for evidence of engagement here, so do make sure you note who you are chatting with.)

Florence Foster Jenkins

An Immaculate Essay

 

Does this essay adhere to proper MLA form?

 

Nonfiction: Dissecting Voice

Brain Drop: Close your eyes and listen to this story by Ed Gavagan for The Moth. Attempt to bring the tale vividly to life in your mind. Pay close attention to Gavagan's voice as a storyteller. What techniques does Gavagan utilize to enhance his narrative?  After the story, freewrite about these techniques in your composition notebooks. Please attempt to include an analysis of any literary devices or figurative language Gavagan utilizes.

Nick Cave

The introduction of John Doran's review "Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Reissues: The First Four Are Dead Good" for The Quietus:

"Murder. We're all attracted to it in one way or another and Nick Cave is certainly no exception. John Doran revels in the first four Bad Seeds reissues.

It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The 'life-partner' is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out to play next to the burnt-out car at the end of the estate. You put your feet up on the futon, turn on your Power Book and log on to the net. Cracked parsnips on a raft of sky-blushed polenta, or free-range squid with quince marmalade, followed up by gluten free sorbet and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown, fair-trade tea, have put you in just the right mood. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to hear about?

Naturally, about a murder. But what kind of murder? If one examines the murders which have given the greatest amount of pleasure to the music listening public, one finds a fairly strong family resemblance running through the greater number of them. We don't want to hear about the actual reality of murder. You know, like that guy from down the road, who got stabbed to death outside the launderette after asking some youths to stop throwing stones at him. Or that fellow who came in from the pub pissed and beat his kids to death with a golf club. No, we want to hear about more intellectually and morally nourishing slayings. Biblical brothers, lovestruck ladies dressed in black, thunder-faced cowboys hell-bent on revenge, drunken preachers. Girls that you love so much, you have to stove their heads in with a rock. That kind of thing.

And some would say, now that Johnny Cash is dead, well, Nick Cave's your man, isn't he?"

Click here for the full review.

Click here for an example of the music of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.

Click here for an example of the music of Johnny Cash.

Fun Fact: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (members of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds) wrote and preformed the soundtrack for The Road film. Nick Cave also wrote the screenplay for the film The Proposition. The Proposition was directed by John Hillcoat (the director of The Road) and stars Guy Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce plays the man the little boy encounters at the end of The Road.

DFW and his famous bandanna. Fun Fact: David Foster Wallace taught at ISU.

An excerpt from David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," a piece for Gourmet magazine concerning the writer's visit to the Maine Lobster Fest:

...

“So then here is a question that’s all but unavoidable at the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, and may arise in kitchens across the U.S.: Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure? A related set of concerns: Is the previous question irksomely PC or sentimental? What does “all right” even mean in this context? Is it all just a matter of individual choice?”

…

“The more important point here, though, is that the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable. It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing. I should add that it appears to me unlikely that many readers of gourmet wish to think hard about it, either, or to be queried about the morality of their eating habits in the pages of a culinary monthly. Since, however, the assigned subject of this article is what it was like to attend the 2003 MLF [Maine Lobster Fest], and thus to spend several days in the midst of a great mass of Americans all eating lobster, and thus to be more or less impelled to think hard about lobster and the experience of buying and eating lobster, it turns out that there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions.

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself—or at least it’s done specifically for you, on-site.¹³ As mentioned, the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, which is highlighted as an attraction in the Festival’s program, is right out there on the MLF’s north grounds for everyone to see. Try to imagine a Nebraska Beef Festival¹⁴ at which part of the festivities is watching trucks pull up and the live cattle get driven down the ramp and slaughtered right there on the World’s Largest Killing Floor or something—there’s no way.

The intimacy of the whole thing is maximized at home, which of course is where most lobster gets prepared and eaten (although note already the semiconscious euphemism “prepared,” which in the case of lobsters really means killing them right there in our kitchens). The basic scenario is that we come in from the store and make our little preparations like getting the kettle filled and boiling, and then we lift the lobsters out of the bag or whatever retail container they came home in …whereupon some uncomfortable things start to happen. However stuporous the lobster is from the trip home, for instance, it tends to come alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water. If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming).¹⁵ A blunter way to say this is that the lobster acts as if it’s in terrible pain, causing some cooks to leave the kitchen altogether and to take one of those little lightweight plastic oven timers with them into another room and wait until the whole process is over.”

…

“In any event, at the Festival, standing by the bubbling tanks outside the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, watching the fresh-caught lobsters pile over one another, wave their hobbled claws impotently, huddle in the rear corners, or scrabble frantically back from the glass as you approach, it is difficult not to sense that they’re unhappy, or frightened, even if it’s some rudimentary version of these feelings …and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it? Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who’s helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I’m not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so. I’m trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the Festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.”

Click here for the full article.

Click here for a David Foster Wallace biography.

Here is another example of a spectacular nonfiction piece called "Trial by Fire: Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?" The piece was originally published in The New Yorker and was written by David Grann.

"The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

Willingham told the Barbees to call the Fire Department, and while Diane raced down the street to get help he found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom window. Fire lashed through the hole. He broke another window; flames burst through it, too, and he retreated into the yard, kneeling in front of the house. A neighbor later told police that Willingham intermittently cried, “My babies!” then fell silent, as if he had “blocked the fire out of his mind.”

 

Diane Barbee, returning to the scene, could feel intense heat radiating off the house. Moments later, the five windows of the children’s room exploded and flames “blew out,” as Barbee put it. Within minutes, the first firemen had arrived, and Willingham approached them, shouting that his children were in their bedroom, where the flames were thickest. A fireman sent word over his radio for rescue teams to “step on it.”

 

More men showed up, uncoiling hoses and aiming water at the blaze. One fireman, who had an air tank strapped to his back and a mask covering his face, slipped through a window but was hit by water from a hose and had to retreat. He then charged through the front door, into a swirl of smoke and fire. Heading down the main corridor, he reached the kitchen, where he saw a refrigerator blocking the back door.

 

Todd Willingham, looking on, appeared to grow more hysterical, and a police chaplain named George Monaghan led him to the back of a fire truck and tried to calm him down. Willingham explained that his wife, Stacy, had gone out earlier that morning, and that he had been jolted from sleep by Amber screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!”

 

“My little girl was trying to wake me up and tell me about the fire,” he said, adding, “I couldn’t get my babies out.”

Click here for the full article.


With your small groups:-Annotate the writing. Note anything that stands out. Please note any examples of figurative language, literary devices, rhetorical appeals, etc. (I want to see what you know.)

-What does the writer of your piece do stylistically and rhetorically? Talk about style and form.

-Do you expect "nonfiction" to look like your excerpt? Is the writers approach to "nonfiction" unique? Why?

-Do you like this piece? Does it work for you?

End of class:

In your composition notebooks, write a short "nonfiction" piece that emulates one of these styles. Tell me which piece you are attempting to recreate. Feel free to write about whatever your heart desires. Here are some prompts you could work with:

1. Discuss one glaring social issue. Why is it a problem? How should it be remedied?
2. Describe a person who has had a large impact on your life but is no longer in contact with you. Why is this person important? Where did they go? Do you miss this person?
3. Review a recent film, television show, video game, or book.
4. Tell a story from your childhood.