TOW #27 "Lost and Found" (written)

Lost and Found by Colson Whitehead is a short memoir about living in New York City, New York, and being a New Yorker. "History books and public television documentaries are always trying to tell you all sorts of facts about New York. That Canal Street used to be a canal. That Bryant Park used to be a reservoir" (para. 5). Whitehead argues that these are not things you need to know about New York City, and also may or may not be true at all. The overall tone is fairly casual and uses slang, contractions, and the voice comes across as very "New York" to the reader. It also seems a bit instructional to the reader because the author uses second person and seems to be talking to the audience, and almost directing them through a day in the Big Apple. The sentences are mainly kept on the shorter side making it seem more conversational as well. Very few of them are longer than 10 or so words. Whitehead also includes little moments of dialogue into the memoir. At the start, it had seemed the author held a negative light towards the grand city and was going to end up trashing it throughout the memoir. However, instead, int he end the author finishes up with the feeling of pride for ones own city, and even all of its little flaws.

TOW #26 "Fried Chicken"(visual ad)

In this image it shows a baby chick standing in a fry basket over a fast food fryer, and asks a thought provoking question: would you boil a chicken alive? Now, this may seem a bit hasty or out of the blue to ask such a question outright. This is an ad that is meant to convince people to “go vegan today” as it says. The small amount of text on it explains how in some chicken slaughterhouses, the chickens are decapitated and thrown in the boiling water meant to remove their feathers while they are still conscious. This would be effective to shock the audience and cause them to at least re-think their chicken eating habits—if only it had not started out with a very clear logical fallacy. “If you eat chicken, you are paying someone to engage in cruelty similar to dropping this little fellow into a vat of hot oil,” is a bit of a mix between a faulty analogy, hasty generalization, and a slippery slope fallacy. This ad is making it seem as if all places do this, and every chicken is treated cruelly like that, which is incorrect. Not to mention, at the same time, the ad is almost being accusatory towards the audience by turning them into the villain, which, in most cases, only ends with denial and not persuasion. Aesthetically, the text parts have been kept simple in a two-toned pallet. On the other hand, the actual image quality is fairly unpleasing and unprofessional. It looks almost as if it was taken from a post anybody made on the internet, and turned into a pro-vegan ad. This ad has very little visual appeal or any major eye drawing points other than the fact that the chick is in a fryer. If they were aiming to shock their audience, they may benefit better from a more morbid take on the situation. As it is now, the effectiveness is going down the drain.

TOW #25 "The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever" (article)

                The title of this prose is more or less self-explanatory. It is about the most amazing bowling story ever. It starts out with a narrative description of a competitive bowler by the name of Bill Fong executing a perfect—or to him, near perfect—strike. The author, Michael J. Mooney, uses descriptive language and imagery to his advantage to describe the short moment. He also notably compares a human’s desired efficiency to that of a robot. He then proceeds to inform the audience that bowling a perfect 300, or twelve strikes in a row, is not the best one can do. The best, in fact, would be bowling a 900, 36 strikes in a row, since bowling is played in three rounds. Apparently, there have only ever been 21 people ever to achieve this on record. This article tells the story of a time when Bill Fong almost made that number 22. Mooney’s use of descriptive language throughout creates a suspenseful mood and makes the reader really feel like they are watching ever little fleeting moment and movement of the scene being described. The article then goes through a biographical section that talks about Fong’s life a bit more in depth. This then leads back to the narrative of Fong bowling. Normally, an interruption of this sort would seem abrupt and ill placed, but Mooney does well to make it seem more blended together and less jumpy. Overall, the narrative sections do well to attract the reader and would make any sport, even bowling, appear to be incredibly intense.