The Frugal Repast

The Frugal Repast by Pablo Picasso

A man and a woman at a table
The man is blind, the woman is not.
Who has it worse?
The man cannot see anything, cannot tell if there is food he simply doesn't know about.
He's wondering if there's something he's missing, if this is simply cruel and unusual punishment,
He's wondering if he will make it and oh dear lord is that all?
He sees the pervading darkness and lack of light and hope,
with the perspective of one who cannot see at all.
And he smells the air in an attempt to find more food,
but catches only the aroma of dust and ash.
And is the ash from the air, or his body, which is breaking down?
Or is it literally his body, which he swears is made of ash
made of the same charcoal-carbon as the fire
the fire of pain, which pierces his body and pounds on his stomach
and can he please have some more food?
And he clutches the girl, his one guide,
the one he hopes is not leading him astray.
And meanwhile she considers how easy it could be to just leave him,
to push him to the ground and run away,
oblivious to the whimpering of a man whose inevitable death has just sped up.
While she gets all of the food,
and starves to death slower because of it.
and yet as much as she wants to, she cannot leave him.
It's as if Time is frozen,
or rather Time will not let them escape,
as their world crumbles and decays.
Like them.

Cultural Chameleons

Since Amy Tan's "Fish Cheeks" was probably the essay I most connected with this week, I guess I'll write about that.

So what I found most interesting about her piece (and in retrospect this is probably true about me as well) is that she varies her behavior depending on her environment. She has no qualms about her relatives having Chinese habits when they are all she is around. After all, she reveals at the end of her piece that her mother had cooked all of her favorite foods for Christmas, so she clearly has enjoyed them at one time or another (most likely with the company of her relatives).

However, when she is in the company of the priest's family, she wants an American nose, a family with American manners, etc. She wants to be American when in the company of Americans.

So the obvious question (for me) is fairly straightforward. Simply put, which culture does Amy belong to? Her default appears to be Chinese, but most of the time, she's also in the company of her Chinese friends, so that may not be true. Alternatively, she could be American by default, but I'm not sure. She could also be a mix of the two (which would mean she blends in to either culture she wants to at any given moment), which would explain her mixed habits and wants, as well as the confusion she feels when presented with both options. What do you think? I'm actually pretty interested in getting more input here.

On an entirely unrelated note, when I was opening my riverside to get to our active reading assignment, I happened to open it to "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" on page 305, and I decided to read it because why not. That had the unintentional side effect of making me question the point of everything that was happening in "Grade A." Whoops.

We meet again, stereotypes

It's pretty clear that one of the central ideas of Nancy Mairs's piece "Disability," is that people with disabilities are human, physical abnormalities or not. But in suggesting that disabled people are just like able bodied people, is she suggesting that able bodied people are like how they thought of disabled people?

At one point in her essay, Mairs talks about labeling able bodied people as TAPs, or Temporarily Abled Persons. Obviously, this is an interesting label towards able bodied people, which seems to say, "You are only temporarily abled. Disability is the norm. One day you shall join us." Obviously, that's rather exaggerated. If it were true, then disability would be the norm and Mairs wouldn't even be writing this paper on behalf of a minority. But that's not the point.

The point is, in the process of classifying all able bodied people under the same label, Mairs seems to be dehumanizing the very people she claims to be the equal to. "We," the able bodied, are all just TAPs. We are just a group of mindless Great American Consumers. We are, to you (the disabled), what you are to us, albeit with a few more abilities. So what's this point you're making about us (the able bodied) dehumanizing you (the disabled)?

Come to think of it, this speaks to a larger truth. It's so easy to claim that you and everyone like you is a victim in some way, shape, or form. It's much harder to tell that you are victimizing others. I suppose it's human nature (way to make an argument against labeling everyone the same thing, Nick).

So yes, in my opinion, her argument falls short in some ways. But it was still a nice, thought provoking essay overall and it's nice to see a fresh perspective. Hopefully we get more of these in the coming semester.

The Diamond as big as the Ritz, revisited

So, if I remember correctly, we don't actually have to write a blog over break, so this is totally not a serious "for points" blog (if we do actually have to write a blog over break then yes this totally my blog this week). Instead, I'm going to write down some thoughts that I regret not actually writing down because they are actually quite interesting. Keep in mind that this is just me making some questionable but interesting connections, and as much as I regret not actually writing this, I know I would never do so for fear of writing down something so implausible that it would be laughed at.

Remember "The Diamond as big as the Ritz"? I wrote about how finding a literal diamond of that sort could have no good results. However, that was under the assumption that the diamond was indeed a literal diamond. Now, I would like to suggest that, though it existed, it did so in a different form. The diamond existed in the form of slaves. In fact, the whole story is a crack at slavery.

Most of the comforts the whole family enjoys exist because of the endless labor of many, many slaves. And to the South, the slaves represented the manpower needed to pull their agricultural profits. Basically, the money (or rather potential) in the slaves that the South exploited is equivalent to a cubic mile's worth of diamond.

Think about it this way. The whole diamond is underground in a mine that is certainly not visible from an airplane. However, the family's mansion (a symbol of their opulence courtesy of the slaves) is. To protect their source of wealth, the family shoots down every plane in sight. In short, the family destroys even the slightest threat of a threat. The practice of suppressing or attacking abolitionists (the people capable of shedding light on the South's cruel practices and thus the equivalent of the airplane pilots) was certainly a popular one down in the South. In fact, in 1856, a certain representative Preston Brooks attacked senator Charles Sumner with a cane. For this, he received widespread acclaim in the South.

"We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission."
-The Richmond Enquirer

Take what you will of this idea, but I always felt like it was a good one. Anyway, now I finally let it out.

Dreams

Heads up, this may or may not have spoilers in it. Before you read this, ask yourself the following question: "Did I read A Raisin in the Sun (Acts I and II) yet?" If the answer to that question is no, stop reading this. If yes, then continue.

This post is going to be an analysis of what I see as the important dreams in A Raisin in the Sun. It will gauge the plausibility and content of said dreams.

Obviously, the most in your face of these dreams has to be Walter's. He simply won't keep quiet about his dream to own a liquor store and get rich. Even when he loses that dream, the first thing he does is cry about it (Can I go ahead and say that we all knew his plan was an impending train wreck when we saw it?). But was it even a possibility to start with?

Well, not really. See, the thing that made Walter so enthusiastic about it was the fact that he was promised that it was more or less within reach. Given he could come up with X amount of cash (I say X because it was all $10,000 to start with, but as we find out he managed to push ahead with only $6,500) he could get his store and... lead his family to the promised land? Walter never thought out the details of his whole get rich quick scheme (such as the real benefits of success and the time and emotional costs involved) and he kept his eyes only on the fact that it would get him rich (he even promises to give Travis the world). I guess the fact that he didn't think out his plan made sense. Walter is the kind of person who appears to have only two things that he wants in life. Those would be alcohol and money, and unfortunately as his life stands the acquisition of one means either the denial or loss of the other. The store represents his dream of getting the best of both worlds and essentially getting money to be drunk (I mean, let's be honest. Given half a chance, Walter would happily drink all of the alcohol in a store that he owns). His dream is unreasonable from the outset, and though he is perfectly fine with lashing out at Mama and accusing her of crushing  his dreams, he is also fine with simultaneously crushing Beneatha's dream of being a doctor.

Beneatha's dream of being a doctor happens to be one the other important dreams in the book. She is the only person in the family who is in college (or at least in a position to get a medical degree). She's also facing a bit of an identity crisis (she doesn't know what she likes so she tries everything and doesn't know really know anything about her heritage and so compensates by being the most annoyingly un-assimilated person in the novel).

It's fairly safe to say, though, that her dream of becoming a doctor is realistic. Mama tells Walter to set aside $3,000 for her education, which is affordable given the whole $10,000 budget. Also, her job as a doctor would be fairly stable and she'd be able to support the family (and her identity eccentricities). In fact, had Walter been able to think objectively about the situation, he'd be able to tell that if he could only get past his whole obsession with alcohol and masculinity and being the breadwinner and let Beneatha take over, he would be much happier. But, of course, that isn't the case.

The last dream that matters is Mama's. Unfortunately, we don't really know much about this one, despite it being a very important dream. It's certainly sustainable, with a down payment of $3,500 and it would heavily benefit the family. It would also be highly practical, because as it stands the family can't expand. However, we really don't know a lot about how it will impact that family, other than the fact that the new neighbors will be jerks (maybe we'll work out what happens about this dream in act III?)

Diamonds are forever (inducing headaches)

So, what would you do if you got a hold of a more or less infinite supply of one of the earth's most precious materials? Would you sell it and live the life of a rich person? Would you release it into the market and make that material lose its rarity? Would you sell it for the sake of assisting the poor and downtrodden? How you answer this question says a lot about who you are.

You see, in the story "the diamond as big as the Ritz," a man comes across a diamond that is literally a cubic mile across. That much diamond entering circulation could instantly ruin the entire diamond market. However, slowly introducing it into the market would make the person in question rich beyond belief. So let's look at the options.

The most obvious (and most self beneficial) choice is to simply keep the diamond hidden and sell it slowly into the market for a huge profit. This is what the Washingtons (the family in the story) choose to do with the diamond. However, while this is certainly a good choice in terms of self benefit, it doesn't help anyone else.

Another option would be to use money from diamond sales to help other people. This would result in a Robin Hood style taking of money from the rich in order to help the poor or whoever. It might make a difference in some areas because of sheer scale (the Washingtons are described as being so rich that the official richest men on Earth are small fry), but ultimately it runs the risk that either the people receiving the help or the people handing it out will abuse it.

A third option entails simply releasing the diamond into the market all at once. This would make a huge impact on diamond prices, because with all this extra diamond in the market it could easily make diamond have very little market value. However, because diamond is vital in industrial processes, an abundance of diamond would allow diamond based tools to become much cheaper, benefiting society as a whole (but completely destroying diamond's worth in jewelry and ruining diamond marketers).

All in all, there really aren't any "correct choices" on how to utilize that much diamond. No matter what you chose to do, some party or another will suffer. That's why it's really hard to criticize the Washingtons effectively. Aside from the ridiculous amount of trouble they went through protecting the diamond, the choice they made (self benefit) is arguably the least damaging one; no one loses from it. Yes, the people they sold the diamonds to paid full market value for them, but the other option is just horrifyingly bad for the gem economy.

For lack of a better graphic, here's a hastily done scumbag diamond.

Bad drivers, Great Gatsby Style

The Great Gatsby is an amazing story of love, money, and the American Dream. It's also an interesting indicator of American ideals at the time, and to a certain extent of American ideals today.

Towards the beginning of the story, Jordan Baker tells Nick that she is a good driver because everyone else is a good driver, and it takes two bad drivers to have an accident. As she drives, she simply hopes that she will never meet another bad driver. That is a very interesting statement, because in a sense the first part is true. A good driver would simply avoid being next to a bad driver, and allow him to drive himself to ruin. Thus technically a single bad driver on the road would be perfectly fine. Unfortunately, when the entirety of the American people collectively decided to live with that mentality, things became dangerous. It only took the economy a slight economic downturn (the threat of a bad driver) to crash itself.

It's also interesting how throughout the entire story, alcohol in general is regarded as a thing of the elite, as only Tom, Gatsby, and a few other select individuals can really get access to it. Gatsby, of course, shares his with the populace in his parties (how he manages to not get arrested despite his ties to the police commissioner due to the fact that no doubt large portions of the police force come to his house every Saturday is beyond me). Also, it's funny how due to his alcohol, many have the courage to belittle him (such as the "gentleman" Nick contacts about Gatsby's funeral).

To protect and serve....themselves liquor