I think this paper was totally relevant to what we are doing in composition class, and more specifically what I am doing right now! It’s crazy. But really I think this article was related to our bloging and who we are graded on our blogs. With all honesty, this reading was pretty boring, I’m glad it was a short one because this one was hard to stay focused on. I see the point of it though so it’s ok; I understand that not all the readings can be as emotional and interesting as the other ones, so it’s cool. What the reading says about grading conversations is totally logical, you want it students to communicate somewhat casually about academics, and you definitely don’t want them to just socialize because I know from experience as a student that once the socializing starts it’s hard to stop. And I get what they are saying about being aware of the audience, I am supposed to be talking to my peers but I suppose I should always be aware that my teacher could be reading. This is why I riddle my papers with subliminal messages so that my teachers will subconsciously give me good grades. The writer also made a point about diction and who words in an academic conversation should be different from a casual conversation. As they should, words in an academic conversation should be of slightly higher quality than an average conversation. Also, it’s obvious that communication is on a whole different level then it has ever been before due to technology I can text, email, instant message, comment, or call someone whenever I want to and that opens up all sorts of opportunities.

I think that hurricane Katrina was obviously a huge tragedy, it was terrible in every way and I hope nothing like it ever happens again. Although, I do feel like Americans become obsessed and fascinated with this blame game for whoever was responsible. I think this part of Katrina was totally unnecessary. Every one is saying F.E.M.A. took to long and didn’t do enough and President Bush doesn’t care about New Orleans and all this hype. But the question I pose is “so what?” please keep in mind I am in no way what so ever trying to diminish or undermine the victims or the tragedy in general, just the blaming that took place afterwards. Because of “so what” let’s just imagine that all conspires are true, pretend President Bush doesn’t like New Orleans one bit, he doesn’t care for any citizen below upper middle class for that matter, and F.E.M.A. was just sitting around doing nothing, playing video games and what not. Then let’s pretend that this information is leaked out to the public and it’s in every paper and on every local news station, Bush and F.E.M.A. are all fired and arrested. Still my question remains though “so what.” So they were caught, but that doesn’t help any victims of hurricane Katrina at all. Look, it sucks that F.E.M.A. took so long to do anything and even after they did it wasn’t much, and it sucks that Bush was acting like a huge idiot. But we shouldn’t be talking about that, we should be asking ourselves, “if they won’t step up to the plate, how can I?” because blaming someone will not fix any levees and blaming some one won’t bring medicine, food or water and blaming some one will never rebuild a city. It might make you feel like you caught some on to put your problems on, and it might make you feel like justice is served. But I don’t see justice that way, I feel like justice will be served when people make an effort to rebuild New Orleans. I know people is vague but it should be vague, because it seems like New Orleans is still a mess and I don’t care who’s fault it is, I just care about how we fix it.

What kinds of roles has music played shaping New Orleans?

I don’t know if this is true for most people but when I think New Orleans there is one name that jumps out into my head right away, and that name is Louis Armstrong. He was a singer and songwriter who was popular in the 40’s -60’s, and he was a huge musical influence in New Orleans. With hits such as “What a Wonderful World”, “Hello Dolly”, and “Good Morning, Vietnam” Louis Armstrong was one of the most popular musicians of his time. In fact, in 1964 Louis Armstrong knocked The Beatles off the top of Billboard’s top 100 chart with “Hello Dolly” (at the time Armstrong was 63 years old). Armstrong was extremely famous for his scratchy singing voice which earned him the nick name of Satchmo, which is derived from satchel mouth. More importantly than his unique voice though was his keen sense for improvisation, he practically invented and perfected the art of “scat” singing which is a free form of singing that was the great grandfather to free style rapping and other forms of improvisational singing. Aside from Satchmo, improvisation was huge in New Orleans and still is today and I think that’s a huge part of what makes New Orleans what it is. There so much soul in freestyle singing and it’s just whatever comes out of the singer at the time, there’s no considerations or judging or even a plan behind it, it just flows. New Orleans is famous for it’s blues and jazz scene but most people don’t know that New Orleans is also popular for it’s heavy metal scene. In the 1980’s there was a lot of metal coming out of New Orleans, in fact a band called Exhorder was one of the first bands to combine doom metal with an up beat tempo to make a new genre more commonly known as groove metal. Although metal may seem totally separate from blues, in a lot of ways they are the same. Most people say the blues music directly inspired most rock and metal music today, but the thing I notice about the 2 genres is the intentions. Blues and metal both focus heavily on pessimism and negativity, most blues and metal songs are pretty depressing, but negativity is a huge part of human emotion so I’m glad that musicians aren’t afraid to flaunt it a little bit. So in conclusion if you mix the improvisation of Jazz and funk, the soul of Blues and the expression of metal, it makes for a pretty powerful sound that has been shaping New Orleans for as long as it’s been around.

o How does hearing the stories of Katrina survivors help you better narrate your own memoir? What strategies do they use that you can also use to make your memoir stronger?


I think that watching the videos about hurricane Katrina was helpful and easy to relate to memoir writings. Katrina was not only a devastating time for all the people in New Orleans but a very traumatic experience for everyone in America. There were so many issues of getting help to the people or how to go about handling the situation and it seemed like American citizens were really disturbed and concerned by hurricane Katrina and its victims. I think this personally helped me with the memoir because a huge portion of the video was essentially a spoken memoir. There wasn’t a whole lot of footage from the actual hurricane, the majority was interviews of people telling and describing there individual stories. So it after listening to story after story you start to develop an understanding of how these people describe what has happened to them and how they can also tie in their personal thoughts in feelings. Although my memoir was no where close to being as dramatic as a national disaster I still got a good feel of how to narrate my past experiences whether they be emotional or not. All of the interviews were surprisingly diverse too, all of these people were victims to the same storm yet they all had stories that were totally independent from every one else’s. This helped me see a proud range of stories told about one single event which thus helped me diversify my own personal memoir.

Summary:
I read about Satrapi, this writer and artist who was being interviewed about her work. She talked about her comfort and confidence in being a “nasty” human being and how she thinks it’s ok to be nasty and that most humans are in fact nasty. She also talked about her own personal work and how she hopes it will be perceived by others. There was also a small example of her work that was in a comic strip form (which it was later discussed that the majority of her work is in comic book form). Satrapi also explained that her stories are just that, stories. Although there is some truth to it, she feels no obligation to reveal how much of her work is the truth or how much is just part of the story. In the interview she talks about her personal beliefs and describes some of her thoughts and feelings in relativity to her work.

Response:
I really did actually find this reading pretty interesting, I mean I generally try to stay positive and superficial on these assignments but there were parts of this that were really interesting. I mean her whole philosophy on imperfection was pretty fascinating. It really got me thinking about that sometimes we get so caught up in thinking who we “should” be and not who we are. I couldn’t help but thinking about my own dreams and aspirations may have been warped by the ever present pressure of society and marketing. I feel it’s a breath of fresh air to just step back and say I’m just a human being. Things won’t always be the way I want them to, I won’t always win, and I’m defiantly far from perfect. But that’s totally ok, like her quote says “Listen: You did a bad thing because you are a human being; don’t worry; try to do better next time. At least try.” I found a lot of truth in this quote and I really enjoyed this reading overall. I do wonder how her writings reflect her philosophies in life. Also, even though she won’t tell anyone, I do wonder what parts of her writings are truth and what isn’t, and for that matter I’m curious as to how she comes up with made up story parts to fill in the gaps between the truth.

Summary:
The memoir by Frank F. Mathias was very interesting, Frank was a veteran and a musician who felt the need (partially due to a lack of memoir writings) to write about his own personal experiences in war. But the as the reader I slowly learned it was much more than a man’s fascinating story, but also a bridge between history and artistic writing. It became clearer to me how I could relate this to my first assignment in which Jerry Waxler advocated the therapeutic affects that a memoir can have on a writer. I could only imagine the story this man had to tell and also the time and thought it must have taken to elegantly transfer his memories and experiences to a memoir that others could enjoy. In the memoir he talks about how he became interested in writing and lists some previous examples of things he had written before.
I also read some writings from FSU students. I especially enjoyed the one entitled “Far From Wonderland.” It was very unusual, it was about a girl named Alice (obviously based on Alice in wonderland) but the story was like a dark demented twist from the original.

Response:
I thought the memoir by Frank F. Mathias very informative. It brushed on a little bit of history but was mainly about his writings and the tie between writing and historic events. It was interesting and I could imagine why Frank chose to write such a memoir. War is a very intense experience for everyone and Frank Mathias seems to have found a very good outlet for those intense experiences through his writing. I could easily and obviously tell he was very passionate about writing and was trying to channel that passion through his words.
I also read the FSU student writings which I found to be more entertaining than Frank Mathias’s memoir (although it was also good). The one entitled “sing with me softly” was very sad but extremely well written and defiantly had an emotional pull. I also really enjoyed reading “Far From Wonderland.” I thought that was the most interesting piece I read because of the randomness and oddity that kept increasing as the story went on.

Questions:
Why did Frank Mathias focus so much on previous writings he had done?

Could a made-up story that symbolizes a real life event be considered a memoir?

How does a person know if an event or time in their life is worth writing a memoir about it? Or how do you sort your life into worthy or unworthy moments?

Summary:
Jerry Waxler writes about memoirs and how they are beneficial to both the readers and the writers themselves. Jerry lists different examples of memoirs and how they are influential and purposeful. It’s relating to stories and experiences that other people have written about, but more importantly it’s relating and sharing emotions. Jerry, also talks about personal experiences and research that have led him to believe writing a memoir is a therapeutic event. Jerry explains that Memoirs can be used to help a writer make better sense of there own past, thus learning more about themselves as a human being. There was also an audio portion of the assignment in which a niece was talking and asking questions to her aunt about hurricane Katrina. It focused primarily on the aftermath of the storm which caused the niece and aunt on the audio tape to be relocated to Houston. Some of the questions where about how the situation had made them both stronger individuals and helped them to learn more about themselves and people in general.
Response:
I found these writings to be very interesting, also emotionally stimulating (especially the audio portion about relocating after hurricane Katrina). I agree with jerry and feel that memoirs can be very beneficial and also therapeutic. This seems to be especially true in the case of the writer, more so than the reader, which I found strange because people usually write for the purpose of readers. Memoirs though, seem to be an entirely different case from most forms of writing; they are a service to the writer and therapy for the mind. I agree with Jerry’s overall message although I found his projection of it to be kind of smug. The audio of the Aunt and Niece however was very powerful. It’s very difficult to even imagine what both of them have experienced and although it helped me understand, I could never truly know how it feels to be in there shoes. I do feel through my own interpretation that they learned so much about themselves and others. They’ve seen first hand that even after a massive tragedy people can still grow stronger through finding love and enlightenment.
Questions:
1. Would writing a memoir put stress on an individual to have their future events and moments in life always reach an unachievable standard worth writing about?

2. Could writing a memoir sometimes be a harmful experience to some one who doesn’t want to re-live their past?

3. Is jerry Waxler a well known writer?