American Born Chinese 1

There is definitely more to this novel than goofy comics. Even though that is what keeps this interesting to read. The tale of second-generation immigrants could normally be a harrowing and serious story to tell. However, this adds a very fresh, almost modernized spin on the story of immigration and assimilation to American culture.
Although I can analyze the text like any other blogpost I have done, the sketches are JUST as important in this case. The artwork, like the picture I attached, is very appealing to me. It gives a traditional Chinese art vibe, mixed with an urban feel that a Gorillaz album or Comme Des Garcons lookbook would give aesthetically. Even the downtrodden shots like Jin with a new perm are just eye popping.
My only huge complaint, is that I really cannot relate to the struggles and issues that (especially) The Monkey King and the others face. However, it is still a very colorful, and unique read.

Brown Girl Dreaming

Just, wow. Let me start this with, how amazing the prose of this strange novel is. The verse format of the authors poetic writing just adds to the story itself so much. These kinds of historic novels can feel a bit dusty, judging by what I have read in the past. This never lets up as a very enjoyable read. The chapters twist and turn, sometimes just a few simple yet hard-hitting lines on a page. This helps portray a culture that I really don't relate to at many points as something I can grasp on an artistic level.

And it isn't that I don't want to relate, but this is a culture so disconnected from what I have experienced. I am fortunate enough to be able to befriend who I want, know who I know. I don't usually think about such priveleges, but the way the author exposes the emotional pain that comes with living in a segregated community had me thinking.

The Youth Lens and Eleanor and Park

There is more subversion of the Youth Lens in Eleanor and Park than I originally recalled. The characters are dynamic, partly, because they find themselves in very adult situations at an early stage, which is part of what made this novel enjoyable. Although Park may have refined taste in music and an attitude of staunch maturity at points, he definitely was not ready to be driving Eleanor across the country to save her life about 200 pages down the line. There is truly a sense of lost youth in the final chapters of the story.
Also, Eleanor is sort of forced out of that classic teen phase. However, she reinforces the youth lens at school. She is bullied, embarrassed by teachers, and generally insecure. These are running themes from Hunger Games to Degrassi, even though she has such a wildly different home life than most.

Yaqui Delgado, Post #2

So far, this book has not done much for me. Mostly, because I simply cannot relate, or at least not anymore. Sure, bullying is an issue for many people. I am very empathetic towards that. With that said, I am really not trying to pump my chest out when I say I can't relate, because I simply don't feel bullied. If I did, it was a very long time ago.

At first, the story seemed much less surreal. "Ok, there are two kids in a rundown school, one of them has a huge issue with the other..." This almost sounded akin to my Middle School experience and friends causing drama with one another. Now, all of the drama in the book is so encapsulating and extropalated that it doesn't seem like it could be any real scenario. Not that this is a bad thing, sometimes the cartoonish nature of the text is the only thing that keeps me interested.

Thoughts: Subvertisement

Never in my life did I expect myself to have any gripes with Spotify. The music streaming platform has given me hundreds, if not thousands of hours of enjoyment and musical discovery. How is this possible? For a mere five dollars a month, I can access any song for free, and build an extensive library and log of all of it. Being an audiophile and lover of the arts, this sounds like heaven at first glance. They even offer it all in the highest formatted quality, known as the “FLAC” file. However, in the last few years, there has been so much backlash.

Logically, they must compensate the recording artists and their labels, otherwise it would be a mass offense of piracy. To get around anything being illegal, they make stranglehold deals with big checks to the labels, while the people who actually put in years of work on their albums make a literal fraction of a penny per stream. When I found this out recently, I was nothing short of disturbed by it. Therefore, my subvertisement is a joke playing off of the accessibility of the streams at the creator’s expense.

I changed the green logo itself to a penny, to show how cheap they are. Then, I highlighted a small fraction of it, because that’s on average, how much one play will earn them, unlike the full dollar on the iTunes market, or sale of a physical copy. The slogan on the original ad was “no more limits” referring to how Spotify premium breaks the boundaries set by the music industry earlier in history. I changed it to “no more money,” to show how the artists feel when they are posted on the service.

Overall, I won’t stop using the program, and have been for 6 years. With that said, I agree with Thom Yorke. The famed Radiohead frontman declared the program “the last breath of a dying corpse.” The integrity of making jams and albums in the modern age is definitely dwindling, and the influx of Internet age works have made it harder.

Feed 2

So, without their feeds, they REALLY can be nothing? I found this very, very interesting. What is the feed in the real world? Oh, yes. The iPhone!

The thematic concept of rebellion is my favorite part of this novel so far. It relates heavily to what is going on in America, or the world at large, at the moment. The nationalistic age plus the Twitter era are clashing into a super-sized mess. In Feed world, who knows? Perhaps this already happened. Perhaps the Mexico drama with war in the USA draws to creepily a parallel for the rest of this class. Although we are not exactly in environmental mishaps, the political turmoil bubbling in 2017, as the two presidents won’t even meet as of today, is getting too real.

I would like to take off my tinfoil hat to continue discussing the Anderson novel, but I am having some serious difficulty. Every single time I can pull something in our world into this indirectly, it gives me a quite the shiver. We may not be bouncing on the moon and going to terrorist night clubs, but how far are we from the mentality of Loga and company? They lead apathetic e-lives, and are ignorant to the world that surrounds their existence.

In all honestly, I simply cannot wait to see how Feed shall unravel. I have a feeling that the big government issues will begin to burst the bubbles in a very personal way. I have also noticed that I am also thinking about Hunger Games when I read this. I get it: same genre novel. The H.G. books are not my cup of tea, but the blindsided American masses, especially in Mockingjay, are so similar to Titus’ group. Maybe the bleak view presented in those was preceded and influenced by Anderson's body of work!

Feed 1

So, has anybody else here seen the movie Clockwork Orange? It has become my favorite movie of all times, throughout the years. With that said, I probably saw it far too young for anybody to embark on such a graphic and tortured work. Sure, there is a lot of lewd scenes and tough-to-crack characters, what keeps me captivated is the essence of it. There is this dystopian aesthetic that is deeply rooted in the plot, but doesn't come off overbearing. I can seriously begin to draw a parallel between this and what I have just read.

I wouldn’t say this book is going to be for everybody, but for me, this is a quantum leap forward from what we just did for Eleanor and Park. First off, I would like to talk about the bizarre prose of the characters. Just like in “Clockwork,” (and maybe even like Orwell’s novels?) they have their own futuristic speak. I have always found it interesting when an author does this. The English language can be used as a malleable way to really pull the reader into their world. The angst that Unit gets when his feed is pure mal, the infinitely shallow sadness he expresses when he thinks about how Loga and himself are no longer a diad. Just, wow. It moves me more than some of the more expressive poetry I have heard!

The characters are all carved out very well. I can say Violet is definitely the most dynamic of the crew. However, the way that Quendy and Calista behave at the beginning proves to be an excellent foil. The despondency of messaging each other face-to-face doesn’t transfer easily to the new inductee, and I found this to be the first revealing moment for who Violet could actually be. Hopefully as I read more, her true colors prove me correct!