Oh my goodnes, today is the last English Class! It's hard to believe that we have read so many different books, written 2 papers, done who knows how many in-class assignments, and have all become Professional Bloggers in such a short amount of time!
I guess it's true what they say...Time Flies When You're Having Fun : ) haha
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Hard Core Logo
I must say, this book was very different from what I am used to reading...but interesting non-the-less! I thought it was neat the way that it was written in a poem format, I found that even though the pages are not filled from top to bottom the reader can still get the full effect of what is going on in the lives of the four out-of-touch punk rockers.
As for the characters, probably not the crowd I would choose to hang around with. It is nice to see the passion that most of the members have for their music and for their 'careers' but I think that there comes a point when we must all move on...Joe just Does Not Get That! It's kind of frustrating in the end when he seems to have not learned one valuable lesson from the past tour from hell but instead decides to try again, with a whole new band!
- I love music...not their music
- I love movies...not their movie
- I love concerts...not their concerts (I must admit my dream concert does not entail being verbally abused for my social and economic status and spitting on the ground is gross enough...I don't need to see friends and band mates spitting on each other because they are just So excited to be back together...)
Over all I thought it was an interesting read and an over all interesting experience. It's nice to have been introduced to something that I would most likely not have picked off of the shelf myself.
As for the characters, probably not the crowd I would choose to hang around with. It is nice to see the passion that most of the members have for their music and for their 'careers' but I think that there comes a point when we must all move on...Joe just Does Not Get That! It's kind of frustrating in the end when he seems to have not learned one valuable lesson from the past tour from hell but instead decides to try again, with a whole new band!
- I love music...not their music
- I love movies...not their movie
- I love concerts...not their concerts (I must admit my dream concert does not entail being verbally abused for my social and economic status and spitting on the ground is gross enough...I don't need to see friends and band mates spitting on each other because they are just So excited to be back together...)
Over all I thought it was an interesting read and an over all interesting experience. It's nice to have been introduced to something that I would most likely not have picked off of the shelf myself.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Tough Love
Now that we have finished 'lullabies for little criminals' I find it appropriate to say something along the lines of "WOW, what a wild ride of sadness, horror, glimpses of happiness, drugs, sex, and prostitutes". I have never in my life sat down and read a novel like Heather O'Neil's!
In the beginning I was very worried, I thought 'oh goodness here we go'. Immediately following this thought I decided 'no it won't be that sad, horrific, or stomach wrenching' and then I realized...yes, yes it is that kind of novel! Baby's knows all to well the cruelties of streets and for a girl of only twelve years old she has experienced and witnessed much more than even an adult should have!
I found it very hard to feel sympathy toward Jules, Baby's dad, probably because he was a heroin addicted junkie who seemed to love and care for his stash on a whole other level then he did for Baby. Many times throughout the novel I found myself frustrated with Jules, especially as he became more abusive and aloof of his young daughter. Now for a girl who has grown up in the country with a loving a mom, dad, two sisters, and a family dog, I am fare from truly understanding the life of junkies and prostitutes living in downtown Montreal. Although in my hometown there are not massive drug dealers walking the streets or pimps walking arm in arm with his prostitutes I have traveled a lot and have seen some disturbing tings...but I found that while reading this book all of my experiences didn't matter. They didn't matter because I don't know the people's stories, I don't know what happened in life that landed them on the street that they are living on, and I don't know what they're circumstances were when they were growing up. In the novel the readers really are in the lives of Jules and Baby, we have an idea of what has led them down the paths that they are on and we have many emotions linked to each character.
It was at the end of the novel when I really thought about it that I realized Jules and Baby do love each other, in their own dysfunctional and inconceivable way. Although Jules is abusive and selfish for Baby's twelve years of life he does do special things for her where you see that glimpse of love: he makes her a pinata (it's horrible but at least he tried), he gets her a doll (second hand but Baby loves her), he calls his smack 'chocolate milk' (to try and keep her from knowing the truth), and there are other examples. Ultimatly I think that Jules truly stepped up to the plate at the end of the novel when he puts his foot down and takes her to live with her aunt in the country. This action is his greatest show of love as this means that he is trying to better her life, he wants her to have things that he didn't have and the things that she has not had.
Although Baby and Jules have many rough relations, at the end of the day they are still father and daughter. They still love each other, even if they don't know how to show it.
In the beginning I was very worried, I thought 'oh goodness here we go'. Immediately following this thought I decided 'no it won't be that sad, horrific, or stomach wrenching' and then I realized...yes, yes it is that kind of novel! Baby's knows all to well the cruelties of streets and for a girl of only twelve years old she has experienced and witnessed much more than even an adult should have!
I found it very hard to feel sympathy toward Jules, Baby's dad, probably because he was a heroin addicted junkie who seemed to love and care for his stash on a whole other level then he did for Baby. Many times throughout the novel I found myself frustrated with Jules, especially as he became more abusive and aloof of his young daughter. Now for a girl who has grown up in the country with a loving a mom, dad, two sisters, and a family dog, I am fare from truly understanding the life of junkies and prostitutes living in downtown Montreal. Although in my hometown there are not massive drug dealers walking the streets or pimps walking arm in arm with his prostitutes I have traveled a lot and have seen some disturbing tings...but I found that while reading this book all of my experiences didn't matter. They didn't matter because I don't know the people's stories, I don't know what happened in life that landed them on the street that they are living on, and I don't know what they're circumstances were when they were growing up. In the novel the readers really are in the lives of Jules and Baby, we have an idea of what has led them down the paths that they are on and we have many emotions linked to each character.
It was at the end of the novel when I really thought about it that I realized Jules and Baby do love each other, in their own dysfunctional and inconceivable way. Although Jules is abusive and selfish for Baby's twelve years of life he does do special things for her where you see that glimpse of love: he makes her a pinata (it's horrible but at least he tried), he gets her a doll (second hand but Baby loves her), he calls his smack 'chocolate milk' (to try and keep her from knowing the truth), and there are other examples. Ultimatly I think that Jules truly stepped up to the plate at the end of the novel when he puts his foot down and takes her to live with her aunt in the country. This action is his greatest show of love as this means that he is trying to better her life, he wants her to have things that he didn't have and the things that she has not had.
Although Baby and Jules have many rough relations, at the end of the day they are still father and daughter. They still love each other, even if they don't know how to show it.
Friday, January 30, 2009
JPod
Well I must admit, over the Christmas break JPod and I did not get along; we were barely friends actually. I flipped through the strange pages and thought something along the lines of "oh dear, what it this craziness?" and set it aside. Over the next few days I realized that I kept bringing the JPodders up in conversations (weird) and kept wondering what the significance was for the strangely written novel and why I wanted to know more about the characters. Finally I brought myself to opening Coupland's novel again and came to the conclusion that I did not want to put it down, I needed to know what was going to happen in the crazy world of the JPodders!
I had been a little worried about the book at first, when it more or less opens with Ethan's mother killing biker Tim, after discovering she had a grow-op in her basement, but once getting into the novel it becomes clear that this was perfectly normal in the JPodders world and that Ethan's family is simply a highly dysfunctional, biker killing, weed growing, latin dancing, imigrant smuggling family! Yes, this is completely normal.
The JPodders are interesting, socially awkward, and highly functioning game lovers. They spend their lives at work, bringing a whole new meaning to 'lives at work'. Favourite past times of the beloved JPodders included picking out the non-prime number between the numbers of 10 000 and 100 000, googling people, writing love letters to Ronald MacDonald, and many other superfluous things completely unrelated to their actual jobs. The characters begin to realize that they are not 'normal' in the popular culture; others are relating their lives outside of work, other employees have hobbies and don't spend their evenings at work. The 'normal' people are getting married and having children and take their week-ends off, they aren't increasing their work load to create a Ronald MacDonald monster programmed to demolish a video game the JPodders have been creating. The JPod community seems to have arrived on earth a little to late, perhaps they would have been better suited for the 90's tech culture, where it wasn't weird to lead the lives they are leading; where is was 'normal' to live an unbalanced lifestyle. Which is a bit of a shame for them I suppose...
Coupland throws himself into this bizarrely contemporary world of the JPodders, at first as an arrogant prick. As I read on I realized that although he is not the sweetest man in the world he proves to be a mentor, especially for Ethan. In some ways he signifies the cooperate sector of the novel, he does not want the JPodders to change he simply asks them, as well as the readers, to question their own lives and everything in them. For example he tells Ethan to "rebuild his hard drive", to widen his horizons and open himself up for more opportunities then he is at the present time.
Coupland’s JPod is an extremely contemporary, hypo-realistic novel that challenges both his characters as well as his readers to question everything in life and to not take things only at face value but to look deeper.
I had been a little worried about the book at first, when it more or less opens with Ethan's mother killing biker Tim, after discovering she had a grow-op in her basement, but once getting into the novel it becomes clear that this was perfectly normal in the JPodders world and that Ethan's family is simply a highly dysfunctional, biker killing, weed growing, latin dancing, imigrant smuggling family! Yes, this is completely normal.
The JPodders are interesting, socially awkward, and highly functioning game lovers. They spend their lives at work, bringing a whole new meaning to 'lives at work'. Favourite past times of the beloved JPodders included picking out the non-prime number between the numbers of 10 000 and 100 000, googling people, writing love letters to Ronald MacDonald, and many other superfluous things completely unrelated to their actual jobs. The characters begin to realize that they are not 'normal' in the popular culture; others are relating their lives outside of work, other employees have hobbies and don't spend their evenings at work. The 'normal' people are getting married and having children and take their week-ends off, they aren't increasing their work load to create a Ronald MacDonald monster programmed to demolish a video game the JPodders have been creating. The JPod community seems to have arrived on earth a little to late, perhaps they would have been better suited for the 90's tech culture, where it wasn't weird to lead the lives they are leading; where is was 'normal' to live an unbalanced lifestyle. Which is a bit of a shame for them I suppose...
Coupland throws himself into this bizarrely contemporary world of the JPodders, at first as an arrogant prick. As I read on I realized that although he is not the sweetest man in the world he proves to be a mentor, especially for Ethan. In some ways he signifies the cooperate sector of the novel, he does not want the JPodders to change he simply asks them, as well as the readers, to question their own lives and everything in them. For example he tells Ethan to "rebuild his hard drive", to widen his horizons and open himself up for more opportunities then he is at the present time.
Coupland’s JPod is an extremely contemporary, hypo-realistic novel that challenges both his characters as well as his readers to question everything in life and to not take things only at face value but to look deeper.
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