Dire Predictions

In a way we are at our own crossroads

      Not to be melodramatic, but our recent reading material is worrying me a little bit. Faced with a lack of data sheets, my AP English paranoia and dismay has refocused on literary themes, and I am coming to some disturbing conclusions. First, we encountered a weepy and depressed grandmother who sees sadness in everything. Then, we were set loose on the internet to learn about Mr. McEwan, a man known affectionately as "Ian Macabre" who said himself that he "hate[s] comic novels." Tied into McEwan and Amsterdam is "Crossroads", which opens with the uplifting first lines "Two friends who met here and embraced are gone, / Each to his own mistake." Amsterdam itself opens outside a crematorium after a woman's sudden and unexpected death. Of course sadness, mistakes, and death are all a part of life and should be reflected in literature, but these themes have occurred with alarming frequency over the past couple of weeks. I am left wondering, am I in for a month of depressing literature? Or will further reading of Amsterdam and deeper analysis of "Crossroads" pleasantly surprise me?

Ian looking Cheery

AP English Delinquent





     In comparison to the highly structured AP curriculum, the blog project has involved a fair degree of freedom. Ms. Serensky provided us with some guidance and requirements, but she has mostly left us free to explore the world of blogger.com on our own. However, today we received specific instructions not to look at any other blogs before we wrote our final reflections. I have always seen myself as a responsible student, one who follows directions, but it turns out I am actually rather careless because the first thing I did upon arrival at my "dashboard" was open up the first new blog post. I am sorry Ms. Serensky, but I read the opening sentences of Chris's blog. Then I started to laugh, which interrupted my train of thought, and gave my delinquent mind time to remember one of the few specific blog instructions of the year. I know it has been brought up that Blogger might be the new Facebook (I think by Kelsey, but I won't make the mistake of going on anyone else's blog again to check). I think this is a pretty good analogy, any time I have a spare moment at a computer I go on my blog and read any new posts. Opening up Chris's blog was a reflex action brought on by months of scrolling through my classmates' blogs in search of witty comments or clever analysis. When the project started I never foresaw this development, I only felt apprehension about coming up with two interesting things to write about every week. In retrospect that was silly; since I became a blogger, my search for blog topics has led me to become ever more observant and analytical in everyday life. Always on the hunt for something to blog about, I search for, and find, parallels everywhere. This has been a fascinating experience, and every time I find a connection I am grateful for how the blogs have sharpened my mind. Additionally, I have enjoyed the opportunity to enjoy the writing of my classmates. On that note, I think I can go finish reading Chris's blog post now.

The Many Faces of Kal Penn

      Just when I thought I had finally escaped The Namesake it came crashing back into my life. I was watching Superman Returns when suddenly up popped Gogol on the screen! Actually it was Kal Penn playing one of Lex Luther's henchmen, but the film adaptation of The Namesake made such an impression on me that Kal and Gogol are forever linked in my mind. I might have been able to let this go, except Kal/Gogol was using some kind of rocket launcher to shoot kryptonite encased crystals into the ocean as part of Lex Luther's evil plot. This certainly was not Gogol-like behavior, but it also didn't seem to suit Kal, it just seemed wrong. This is because I think Kal Penn has a funny face, by that I don't mean there is anything wrong with his face, just that he looks like he should be telling jokes or getting into comic mischief, rather than executing a plot for world domination. Both times I have seen him in a serious role it has made me uneasy, he didn't suit Gogol and he just didn't seem like the evil minion type either. This sense of discord between my perception of him, and his actual roles motivated me to do some research to try to sort out this upsetting incongruity. It turns out he is actually a fairly serious guy, he has certainly played many comedic roles as an actor but he also has some serious characters under his belt. The one we are all most familiar with is, of course, Gogol. Penn, whose real name is Kalpen Modi, is pretty well educated. He double majored in film and sociology at UCLA and is pursuing a certificate in international security from Stanford. He was also invited by the University of Pennsylvania to lecture in the Asian American Studies Department. I can't imagine what it would be like to attend a lecture by Gogol, probably even more bewildering than the whole rocket launcher incident. Penn also has a lifelong interest in politics, inspired by his grandparents' participation in Gandhi’s march for Indian independence. Penn has recently explored this interest in his role as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement for President Obama. I was a little disturbed to read that he briefly left this post in order to film A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas 3D, but that he has now been reinstated in what seems to be a fairly important political position. I am sure Kal is very competent, but that title might give people the wrong idea. Although really, I am not sure what the "right idea" is when it comes to Kal Penn. He is a politician, he gives academic lectures, is funny, helps super villains take over the world, and struggles through his angsty teenage years with a mop of long greasy hair. I really do not know what to think of him, and although it is a stretch to compare this to schizophrenia, I think I may have gotten a small taste of what it would be like not to know what is reality and what is your own skewed perception.

Politician Kal

Funny Kal



Angsty Teenage Kal



Serious Kal

World Domination Kal

A Double Standard

I will start out by establishing that I was not clever enough to realize Teddy in Shutter Island was crazy all along. I was completely rooting for him and he had my head filled with paranoid conspiracy theories about the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and warden from scene one. Based on the informal poll we took in class today I was not alone in my misplaced belief in Teddy's sanity. At first I did not really see anything odd in the widespread trust we had of Teddy. He is the main character, he seems haunted by the war and the death of his wife, but he also approaches his job with diligence and integrity. Diligence and integrity are both valuable character traits, so what's not to trust? In retrospect, the hallucinations should have tipped me off. Even though he seemed to know they had no basis in reality, a sane man does not have recurring visions of the dead. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I was caught off guard again when a parallel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest cropped up in my mind. I remembered our initial debates over whether to trust Chief Bromden, mainly because he had recurring hallucinations. However, in this case it seems more correct to call it a perpendicular because we behaved in a totally opposite manner with Shutter Island. Why, as a class, did we display such reluctance to trust Bromden because of his hallucinations and then so easily trust Teddy in spite of his hallucinations? I have come up with two possible answers to this question. First, the difference between the characters themselves. As I said before, Teddy appears to know his hallucinations have no basis in reality. In contrast, Bromden seriously believes the things he sees actually occur, which makes him seem crazier than Teddy. Another difference between these characters lies in the form of media in which we encountered them. Chief Bromden resides in the pages of a book, while Teddy comes to us on a movie screen. I think books lend themselves more easily to analysis; you can easily revisit the pages as many times as you like and for as long as you like. This gave us time to probe Bromden's character more deeply and perhaps led us to question him more. Meanwhile, Teddy appears in a film, made up of short scenes which often seem to flash by. We saw each scene once, and for a relatively brief amount of time and I feel sure this affected the depth of my analysis. This really drives home the point that watching a movie is not the same as reading a book, which in turn reinforces the importance of literature.

Sane?

Crazy?