Saturday, April 25, 2015
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.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
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.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
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.
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