Elementary My Dear Watson

                   As a wise woman once said, "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you might get." I guess the same goes for books because I did not figure on reading half of the things that I do. For example, today I began reading A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Or a you plebeians might understand, a Sherlock Holmes book. This is the first Sherlock Holmes book both in chronology and in my reading life. My parents have always tried to get me to read the Sherlock Holmes series, indeed my mom pre-downloaded  A Study In Scarlet to my birthday present, a kindle (on which to read Sherlock Holmes, presumably). I put off the reading as long as I could but was accosted by the awful fate of having nothing to read except for the dreaded book. However, as I said before, "you never know what you might get" because I LOVED it. The book was witty, challenging to read, introduced me to new vocabulary and the story was fascinating. I was worried about many things that classics are prone to include, such as flowery paragraph-long descriptions of a chair and other equally non-central objects, slow paced plot lines and overly cautious and wordy dialogue that holds a challenge for the impatient mind of a teenager. However the descriptions were brief and succinct, the plot line was fast paced with the murderer found in around 100 pages, and the dialogue exciting and short. To speak briefly, it was a surprise that the book was enjoyable.
                     Not only was it enjoyable, it was also relatable. The book is told from the perspective of Dr. Watson, a seemingly staid man who finds adventure with the insane Sherlock Holmes and begins to escape from his mundane and painful life as a listless army casualty of the Afgan war. They meet on a quest for a house and end up roommates of sorts. The story between the two friends is relatable, as no one that I know solves murders in 1800s London. Sherlock Holmes is the crazy friend who is always niggling you into doing outlandish things and often embarrassing yourself in public, but he always gets you out unscathed and ready for the next adventure. I have friends like that, and to some people I am that friend. All the Sherlock Holmes of the world do is get you out of your comfort zone. And at the end of the day you've had fun in their crazy carefree whirlwind of a life. However, the fact that they can all of this and survive while you worry yourself with the repercussions is sometimes annoying, as Watson complains about cleaning up Holmes' messes. So the book was also relatable making it an easier way.
                     The friendship between Watson and Holmes was not just relatable, but a key factor in this first book. Conan Doyle is setting up the two companions for a long haul in the books to come, so establishing their friendship was one of the main purposes of this first book, I infer. Murder is a messy business and trust is key to any working relationship. There's a reason people synchronize watches, its to be on the same page, and that's what needs to happen with Watson and Holmes. So Doyle establishes their friendship subtly, as real friendships are made as well. First it starts with accepting the friendship, this happens when Watson sticks with Holmes when the crime is discovered. Watson has been at war, he has seen horrible things and doesn't need to be around more killing, but he sticks by Holmes, showing that he knows that Holmes needs him as much as vice versa. The second point is when Watson backs Holmes up with a gun, again the war has traumatized Watson but he is willing to look past that and roll with the adventure. I can see their friendship growing stronger throughout the books.
                      All in all, sir Arthur Conan Doyle has created a timeless masterpiece of fiction that I'm so glad that I read. Both the lack of values that I dislike in classic and the relatable budding friendship between Watson and Holmes make it exciting. Bring me the next one!

Writing About On Writing

                     Right now I am reading the fascinating and highly accoladed book "On Writing" by acclaimed horror author extraordinaire Stephen King. Now this was an interesting book to read because I, personally have not read any of Stephen Kings 35 books or numerous short stories. Instead it was recommended to me on the pretense of being a book about writing, and a memoir of sorts combined into a stellar piece of literature that would enrich my own craft without having to know how King used his tips in his own work at all. So I picked it up curious, was it going to be one of those boring books that lectured own about grammar and the importance of showing and not telling in prose, despite my teachers assurance that it was entertaining? The book, to Ms. Cunningham's charging was not boring or in the least bit preaching about the importance of mechanics in novels or any other piece of writing Mr. King has created. In fact it didn't start off as a book about writing at all (at least not obviously). Which made it much easier to absorb and get into the many layers of knowledge being imparted unto me through the paper (an act that King later elaborates {see 4}). And I learned many gold nuggets of information that I related to and seemed extremely relevant to my point in my writing life:

1. Inspiration comes in many forms, do not refute any as being unworthy
                     Stephen King describes his muse as a " guy with  the cigar and the little wings" who has got a "bag of magic." He says that you have to descend to the muse's level and furnish his "apartment" for him, doing all of the so called "grunt work." But apparently, in the end its worth it because the stuff inside the little bag is life changing. He says that there is always something to dig up and turn into something actually worth writing, that inspiration comes in many forms. This spoke to me because I have a picky mind. I have so much trouble free writing because I shoot down ideas as they develop as being unworthy and boring. My notebooks are full of stories that take up one page and then abruptly drop off, turning from a historical fiction tale of a girl to a humorous biopic of a made up superhero or something simarly bizarre. But if you take King's word for law, then you have to realize that with work every single story can be turned into something interesting a worthwhile if you stick with it, dig deeper into it and find the good that made your muse hand it to you in the first place. King felt this way with one of his novels, Carrie, he says he threw it out after three pages but his wife convinced him it was good and he expanded it. It was his breakthrough novel.

2.Don't force your writing to be something its not
                   Often times, in school you are exposed to your peer's writing. It may be as an example of something to work towards or it may be an example of something not to do. Either way, it affects how you see your own work. For me, when I read other people's work thats REALLY good, I aspire to be like them, I try to write like them, to add in little mechanisms they use to make my own work better because they are the definition of better. It often happens, for me, with vocabulary. I force myself to find a more "advanced" word like solicitous instead of plain old friendly to make my writing seem better. However, Stephen King says that you shouldn't try to dress up your writing in fancy words or extra details, if you mean to say walk, say walk. He explains that for him, writing should flow, you shouldn't need to stop and say "is this a good enough word?" All in all, I interpreted this as, if its what flows from your fingers, don't over analyze or try to change it, because then it stops being yours.

3. Use what you see in everyday life as an inspiration for the fantastic
                 Stephen King is a master of horror, his books (according to those who read them) are terrifying gruesome and all together... horrific. But I'll bet you none of this stuff happened to him in real life. So where does King get his inspiration from? According to his book, all of it comes from building off of things that have happened to him in everyday life. For example, one story he wrote about a man who counterfeited trading stamps came from the image of his mother, tongue green from licking such stamps. King makes you know that writers, especially those who write fantasy or horror, should remember their childhoods, pay attention to their present and make sure that everything around them can be spun into something extraordinary. This was relevant to me because sometimes I lack the inspiration to write or draw or even dance. Reminding me that some episode as small as dropping a quarter into a subway grate and wondering where it went could be turned into a whole novel about money being fed into a machine that mints it for the government. A conspiracy book from an everyday incident. The world seems mundane at times, but comes alive when you appreciate what awesome material you have to work with.

4. Writing is telepathy
               Although this isn't a technique or a "gold nugget" of info that will help me write better stories, it made me appreciate writing more and art more in general. And with this added respect for the craft, I feel as though in some ways I will be able to do better work. Stephen King proves that writing is like telepathy, and also a bit like time travel in my opinion, he wrote this book in the late '90s yet he is putting thoughts into my brain all the way in 2012. When he describes a scene involving a red chair, a green apple and a white wall, I picture something thats pretty similar to what he probably imagined. Writing is timeless, as long as you can read information is traveling from a different time to you. It is also traveling from a different mind to yours, the definition of telepathy. Respecting this fact can make you understand more that the reader is only seeing what you see, the telepathy is only working, if you describe the scene or object in the appropriate way, it doesn't have to be lengthy but understand, King explains, that you are transporting an image.

               I started off unsure of whether I wanted to read this book, much less wanting to get so much information from it. But it was a blessing in disguise, this book is definitely improving how I write, but also giving me more respect and confidence in writing.

In other words, thank you Ms. Cunningham.

Collateral

                 When I was eight years old, I got sent to a different world. My mom kissed my cheek, told me I was going to be fine and left me in front of the door. This gateway, portal sucked me in with the spoken words, "Shalom Rachel!" And so began what I felt like was a dual life. It didn't matter that this world was across the street from my school or that it physically existed on planet Earth, in Park Slope, Brooklyn NY. I seemed to leave Zoe Fruchter behind whenever i transversed the boundary that seemed to surround PSJC, my other world. The temple (PSJC) made me feel small, the sheer weight of religion and tradition bore down on my eight-year-old shoulders like a yolk. I had a different name, Rachel, a different family, Yonina, Yakov and Leah and different friends and teachers. The food was different, kosher, the customs were different, even the alphabet was different. In my other world I was Zoe Fruchter, daughter of Lev and Jill sister of Ella. In my other world I was smart, in this one I could not read or write. In my other world I had friends, I was outgoing and I prospered like a flower bathed in sun synthesizing all information and experiences, with all of the materials I needed. Here I was minuscule, unimportant, an outsider who nibbled on fake Oreos in the bathroom because there was no one to play with. I was a flower in the winter, isolated, devoid of my societal nessecities bending under the weight of the frost. The two places were so different I distinguished them as separate universes.
                     Religion is odd like that, it makes you unsure of who you are, of why you even exist on this planet. Of whether you even have any power to change who you are the actions you take in your life. Religion makes you question all that you once held certain in your life. Judaism gave me a new name, language and culture. Later I would learn how to integrate these things into pre-existing life, but at eight it felt uncannily like I changed every time I kissed the mezuzah on the arched doorway and entered hebrew school.
                 Hannah, in A Time Of Angels by K. Hesse is weighed down by her religion. Growing up in plague ridden Boston at the time of World War II, Hannah is weighed down enough as it is. She pretends to be a boy as to keep a job as a paper boy (adolescents who hawked news headlines in order to sell periodicals to the public), evading the groping hands of her supervisors and waking up at dawn to provide for her haphazard family consisting of her beloved sisters Libbie, Eve, her Tanta (aunt) Rose and Rose's companion of sorts Vashti. Hannah mothers her sisters in spite of hardworking Rose's insistence that she leave it to Vashti, who Hannah believes to be "like a buzzard" or parasite that sucks the life out of everything that she knows to be good about the narrow world that is all that Hannah knows.
                However, Vashti is not the worst thing out in Hannah's world, influenza is a threat much worse than any one person and when Hannah's cherished Tanta and sisters fall prey to it, Hannah is left alone with Vashti, the one person in there family who is selfless enough to send Hannah away from flu riddled Boston, to the country where the plague cannot touch her no matter how much her blood family pleads for her to stay with them. When you love someone, it is the hardest to let them go. You want them so badly that you cannot send them away, even though it is the very pinnacle of love: letting go.
                  So Hannah is alone, on a train to be entrusted into the care of a strange family, she turns to her faith her religion. The fact that it was so hard for her to do this. She "wrestled with the unknown force, whose magnitude of decision and aftermath seemed of greatest weight and caused the greatest of terrors to a girl who survived only by focusing on the path just in front of her."She is torn because her closest person, her aunt told her to pray to God for deliverance but Hannah is not sure if she can. By choosing to accept religion, you are choosing to accept that you are not in control of your life anymore. Hannah has survived her harsh world purely relying on her own wits and talents, to give up this control is like betting your life on something. You are completely at a loss for jurisdiction concerning yourself, but you have something to blame when things go wrong.
                   Hannah is at a loss for what to do, she wants to respect Tanta Rose's memorie but cannot bring herself to relinquish her firm belief that she can decide her fate. But subconsciously, she transcends into a dream world. She begins to see angels everywhere saying "powers once unknown to me now look like the works of a phantom hand, one that cradled Tanta Rose..." in other words, God. Hannah describes her acceptance of a higher power and joining a new society and seeing a new world. I think that Hannah had to completely let go of what she had known before in order to survive her present. The past was weighing her down. And the idea of religion was weighing her down because it was bonded with the past. Yet be releasing her past as the thing that shaped her essence of self, she could embrace a belief that could lift her away from her loss.
                  So although I am not sure whether I have accepted God I understand what Hannah means when she describes religion being a different world. Its such a controversial and relative thing, the cause of so many conflicts, yet some say it heals. Its something so different from everything else that it becomes, in a sense, a different existence.

Blame it on the alchohol

                 Recently I have been reading the book Winter's Garden by Kristen Hannah. Hannah focuses on a topic that in the past has been kept very close to the chest of the former Soviet Union. It is a story of dread, of hope, of starvation, of war, and above all, of desire. The desire to tell control your life, the desire to keep someone you love from hurt and harm, the desire to finally be free of whatever shackles that this material life chains you with. This is the story of Anya Whitson. The story that she is reluctantly telling her daughters. So she begins, Anya was not born Anya Whitson, she was gifted the name Vera Petrushka of Petr Valinokas, a seemingly ambiguous man who wanted to be a poet, wanted to make a difference under the oppressive rule of Stalin, the premier of the Soviet union, posed in such a substantial position of power that he captures and kills off all who dare defy him in even their choice of occupation. This is the world that Vera comes of age into.
                  Yet Vera is not afraid of Stalin, sure she knows she is not to do anything that might jeopardize herself or her family in the slightest, minuscule bit but she continues her life as it would be without him. She becomes a carefree adolescent, she falls in love, takes care of her sister. And above all, she is happy. That is Vera's ultimate defiance towards Stalin. Stalin is like a black hole, sucking in every star, anything that might shine against his darkness. He extinguishes that light in most people. Although they say they are in defiance of him, he has broken them. They have winked out. But not Vera, Vera is kept out of the black hole because her light shines on. But, alas, she is not invulnerable to the light of others. Vera's father is arrested under the unforgiving streetlights in front of their sparse home and Vera knows, deep inside that he will not come back. And so, she too becomes just another of Stalin's broken toys, her happiness and innocence destroyed because he has broken into her life and her bubble has popped.
                 So that is Vera Petrushka, but who is Anya Whitson? Why did she change her name and what isn't she telling her daughters about her past? This is what is going through the mind of Nina Whitson, Anya's daughter. Nina is a war photographer she uses her photos as a cathartic way for her to both help other people and distract herself from the loneliness she feels without her father, who has died recently and the fact that she is practically estranged from her mother and her sister Meredith. So Nina is used to investigating the facts. She is used to hunting down every single frame and shot until she has a compete clear picture of what has happened. And not only that, Nina is used to her photos being published, she relishes the idea of exposure, the fact that now everyone can know about the horrible things that take so much effort to hunt down, to triangulate the locations the names of things people want to keep covered up. So it comes at no surprise that Nina is the one to try to uncover her mother's hidden story. She needs to know the reason her mom can barely look at her, the reason she doesn't laugh, the tragedy or insanity behind the garden she plants in the winter when only ivy blooms. And Nina is used to getting her way.
                   So how does she find out what changed? What changed after the night Vera's father was captured in order to make this carefree girl into who Nina sees before her, a cold women with snow white hair, a woman who's age is unknown, who doesn't seem to love her own children. Just how much light could Stalin siphon off without killing the frail woman? Nina finds a way to get her mother to tell the rest of the story.

Get her drunk.

             Not really something one anticipates from such a poignant and sensitive story. How does alcohol play a part in this play set in the Soviet? Does it melt the ice that surrounds Anya? Or does it penetrate her deeper and deeper into the despair and semi-madness NIna and Meredith already see in her? Over their daily shot of alcohol Anya begins to open up to her daughters, but is it the truth? Anya is spinning tales and stories about knights and gardens that bloom in the winter, princes and snow bridges and ballerinas who can fly. How do you discern what is real or fake in this myriad of fairy tales? If Anya finally telling her story, how she changed that night and who she became? Do these fairies lead to something greater? Or is Nina just searching a woman who has fallen down the rabbit hole? Meredith, NIna's older sister sums it up perfectly when NIna asks her why her mother is seemingly insane

"Blame it on the alcohol."

Age Divided

             I recently read the book "Cuba Turns 15" by Maria Osa. The book follows Violet Paz, a 15 year old Sophomore at the huge impersonal Tri-dist high school. Violet has two best friends, bubbly and hippy-like Leda Londquist t the serious and driven Janell Henry. Violet is spotted by her ax-like teacher, Mr.Axelrod as funny and is put on the speech team for original comedy. At the same time, her traditionalist grandmother and Polish mother are planning her a quincenera, or coming of age ceremony for a `15 year old girl. Violet is doubtful of having her quince, but she gradually comes around to it, as well as to the idea of exploring her Cuban Heritage.  I think that the reason that Violet decides to join the speech team and explore her heritage is because of her quince.
           Before Violet decided to accept her quincenera as something that she wasn't going to fight and something that she actually wants to do, she feels like she is 5, as she says, "a little girl still running home when the bell rings" She doesn't want to do anything at her school in terms of activities and doesn't want to involve herself in anything outside her comfort zone. Also, she tries to avoid mentioning anything that even remotely involves Cuba, a subject she knows that her dad doesn't want to talk about. However, after she accepts her quincenera role and responsibilities she decides to stick with speech team and her competition speech becomes better and better. Also, she begins to explore her Cuban heritage, no matter what her dad says. A quincenera and any coming of age ceremony is about accepting your responsibilities and becoming serious about her life. I think that Violet is realizing that she has a responsibility not only to herself but to the world to let loose and explore who she really is.
             In conclusion, Violet became more risk-taking and open after she accepted the responsibilities of a quincenera. But I think that the quincenera was just a nudge that Violet needed to realize the responsibility she had to herself to be happy, and the responsibility to the world to show them what a great person she really was.

Indians are from India

            What do you think of when you hear the word "indian?" Do you think of intricately beaded moccasins and ponchos? Teepees and campfires and long feathered headdress? Or do you think of saris, swaths of fabric draped and folded around a women's body, bindis (dots of red on foreheads) and spicy curies? Although these descriptions are generalizing, most people's thoughts follow one of these two paths.
            The truth is, "Indians" are from India. They factually fit the second line of thought. So why is it that when I asked my sister, two of my friends and my aunt, most of them said that they first thought of the first description when thinking about the word "indian?"
           To fully develop this train of thought, we need to know a bit of historical information. When Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, he thought he had sailed around the world and was in India. That is why he labeled the Native Americans he saw and enslaved as "Indians." Although the term is factually wrong and even a little racist, people and text books use it to this day.
            Its the text books that I have a problem with. In school we are given The US History text books that take us from colonization to present day. Although they are supposed to teach us what happened before we were alive, these text books gloss over many of the gross and unpleasant pieces of America's history.
             When I read Howard Zinn's amazing and thought-provoking young adult non-fiction book, "A Young Peoples History of the United States" it opened up my eyes. I finally saw how my text book didn't give me all of the information about our world. For example, the text book talks about Christopher Columbus as a brave explorer, who did enslave some natives, but gave them work and paid them. The text book does not speak of the massive numbers of native who were killed, whole tribes driven to extinction as a result of Columbus' endless thirst for gold and other precious metals hidden in North America that Zinn's book does. Another example is slavery. Of course the text book does not justify slavery, but it never mentions some of the gorier details that were involved in it. One example, it was extremely common for female slaves to be raped and sometimes impregnated by their masters, who forced them to engage in sexual activities because they "owned" them. One of these men was none other than one of our "founding fathers," Thomas Jefferson. The textbook speaks of his ingenuity in penning the Constitution and his political role, but not the slave he impregnated.
                I think that it is wrong for text books to gloss over details that might not be deemed "age appropriate." History is supposed to be about facts, not half-truths that don't include all of the details. I would rather know about the bad in people as well as the good things that they contributed to America. Because, as proven with the word "indian," people take generalizations and factually wrong things they read in text books and remember them, and truth is lost.

Am I Blue?-Well Does Society Think You Are?

                                                                                           

             Growing up as a teenager is a whirlpool of expectations: where you go to school, how you dress, your level of popularity, even who you love. Everybody expects you to be somebody. And that somebody isn’t always who you are, its just who people are confortable with you being. These societal pressures are crushing and can lead to the elimination of your uniqueness. In his short story, Am I Blue?, author Bruce Coville asserts that conformity limits ones self and forces people to fit into boxes and stereotypes formed by others. Coville does this by showing the reader how people have to conform to the stereotypes of their jobs and societal positions and how many gay people change themselves to conform to stereotypes and, also, that society even has stereotypes for gay people.

Sometimes who you are can be more terrifying than any other outside threat. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on therapists trying to fix something about the person they are versus the person they want to be. Many gay people in the short story, Am I Blue? by Bruce Coville are scared by who they are and how that might make them different from what society expects from them. This leads them to change themselves in order to fit into the boxes people put them in based on their station in life. One example is found when Vince, the main character, has been given the gift of being able to see if someone is gay (as they appear blue if they are). Vince says “Mr. Alwain, the fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which surprised me, because he was married and had three kids.”  Vince is surprised because the man seems to be straight with a family and a typical job, but he actually isn’t. While being straight (a more typical existence in most areas) might be easier, Alwain decided to cover up an integral part of who he is because of what society might expect him to be.  Another example found in Am I Blue? is when Vince is watching the news. He says he “the shade of a spring sky—pale blue, but very definite. So was the congressman he interviewed, who happened to be a notorious Republican homophobe.”  The congressman spoke derogatively towards homosexuals, though he was one himself. This man probably felt pressures to conform to his party’s and his conservative surrounding society (Republicans are traditionally against the idea of homosexuality)’s viewpoint and changed himself to appear heterosexual. The congressman felt he had to be different than who he was because of his societal status. A third example of changing yourself to fit expectations in Am I Blue? is also found when Vince is watching the news. Vince says he “did get a kick out of the three blue guys I spotted in the sports feature on the team favored to win the Superbowl.”  People do not expect football players to be gay, as football is thought of as an extremely masculine sport. The football players who appeared blue have not identified themselves as gay, probably because of what society expected people in their proffession to be. They buried their homosexuality to appear “normal.”

On Facebook, if someone posts a picture of a male wearing jewelry, pink or extremely fashion forward clothes, there’s almost always a comment saying “that’s so gay.” Some people who post things like that aren’t homophobic (they’re just joking), some are, but it goes to show that while society holds stereotypes for people to not be gay, there are also stereotypes for what gay people should look like. So even if you openly acknowledge that you’re gay, you are still not free of stereotypes and expectations. In Bruce Coville’s short story, this is evident.  When Vince and his fairy godfather Melvin are in a café, Melvin shows Vince how many people are gay in the restaurant that is filled mostly with theater club members. Almost 1/3 of them are and Melvin explains that, “Groups like that tend to have a higher percentage of gay people, because we’re so naturally artistic.”  And “Of course, some bozos take a fact like that and decide that everyone doing theater is gay. Remember, two thirds of the people you’re seeing aren’t blue.”  As Melvin explained, many people think that all people in theater are gay just because it is artistic, which gays “naturally” are. People, therefore, stereotype people in arts as “gay” even though a lot of them aren’t. Society also stereotype gay people as to how they move, not just what groups they are in.  When Vince first meets Melvin he asks, “Do you have to walk like that?” He states that he is afraid that “walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation{he was in}.” In other words, Vince thinks that people will identify Melvin as gay just by how he walks. Society stereotypes people as “gay” in terms of how they move and what groups they associate with.

In Bruce Coville’s fascinating and poignant short story, Am I Blue?, Coville focuses on the idea of conformity, the injustice of the stereotypical expectations and pressures society puts on both gay people and non-gay people alike. Coville demonstrates that many gay people change or hide who they are in order to fit in with who society thinks they should; be based upon their job or societal position. Coville also asserts that people have stereotypes for what a gay person should be as well. These issues lead to nothing but hiding and trying to fit inside other people’s boxes. The world is not a filing cabinet, people don’t exactly match a certain container and you can’t just put them away. So after seeing the damage that can be done, I challenge you re-examine your own thinking, ask yourself, do I accept the stereotypes that society has put in place for me and my peers? Or do I choose to challenge what people say people “are” and “aren’t,” making my own judgments instead of blindly putting everybody into boxes. It’s your decision.