A Conversation Overheard

                Yesterday, I found myself strategically placed in a new North Pole coffee shop called Leaf and Bean. From my perch I was able to use my parents as a front and eavesdrop on the rather loud baristas. It was about eight on a Wednesday evening and they were getting ready to close up shop soon. The conversation I overheard went something like this:

“What’s wrong with you?! Oh my gosh! You are horrible”

“What? Why?”

Laughing

“Will you put that back in the fridge for me?”

                As this was no ordinary coffee shop, they were not conversing as to normal objects to place in the fridge. The one was, of course, telling the other to put the dead body back into the fridge. It wouldn’t do to let it sit out all night, for then it would begin to smell and they would be discovered. However they felt comfortable discussing they’re issue while members of the general public were present for they were sure that every normal person would assume that the conversation was about the milk.

                The events that had transpired earlier that evening had been rather traumatic for one poor soul in particular. His name had been Fernando. He traveled up to Alaska as a small boy and decided to move here when he grew up, if that is what one would call it for Fernando was a midget and had not grown since the fifth grade. Upon arriving in this fair state Fernando met a wonderful girl. She did not care about his height and always said it was the inside that mattered anyways. They quickly became fast friends and even more. One night, Wednesday to be exact, she invited Fernando to the coffee shop where she worked for a cup of Joe with just the two of them. This was the best, and last, coffee that Fernando would ever drink.

Dear Fernando forgot to ask his girl why she was a barista living in a mansion. As it turns out, it is only the inside that mattered to her and, as there are many sick midgets in the world, Fernando’s organs would go for more than enough to pay her heating bill. As she put the chloroform over his face he looked so peaceful and breathed his last. Her break ended and customers were soon to arrive. With no other suitable storage area, the clever barista stored his body in the fridge and it fit just perfectly. This brings us to the earlier discussed conversation that I overheard when her partner discovered Fernando’s body.

This conversation is obviously out of context as it had been directed at the milk, although it could have been directed at replacing a dead body that had fallen out. This is rather misconstrued and a little farfetched.  We should be concerned with context because out of a proper context, the baristas should be in jail, however in the correct context the milk won’t spoil. This is a huge difference. Context gives us place and background about what is being discussed and why. All of these things affect the meaning of the words themselves.

A Response to "Going Native"

                In this essay, Francine Prose explores some interesting issues. She raises the question as to whether or not going native is beneficial or detrimental, yet she gives examples to prove both and leaves the decision up to the reader.

                Prose has an interesting writing style in which she has one over all topic that she keeps coming back to. In this case, the idea of assimilating to a culture or going native as she calls it. Then she weaves in many stories about herself, people who were famous and even people I have not heard of. The addition of many stories in this piece make more convincing and really go to prove her point that people assimilate to cultures or views that they did not previously embrace, simply because that is what they find themselves surrounded by or because they find a new appreciation for a new culture.

 I think that in many cases people will choose to go native due to an appreciation for another culture. Gangs draw in a following because they appear to be safer than the world surrounding troubled youth who view the gang as a safe place with family, even though they may be in more danger when associated with a gang.  Awe for another culture can arise from a distain for one’s own culture, as the author described in her experience of boredom with her own little world. Such an appreciation can also arise from a realization once one finds oneself in another culture and this culture seems better, boulder, or more fitting with one’s personality as what happened with Lafcadio Hearn.

One must ask does the dissatisfaction with one’s culture arise from a perspective of nature or nurture. To support the argument for nature, some people are born feeling as though they are in the wrong place and were meant to have been born elsewhere, another time, another place, or another gender. To raise an argument for nurture, some people live their life in an aimless manner and do not realize where they are going until they arrive and the culture that they find themselves in simply suits them. However, nurture can also be an adopted child who finds themselves content in their circumstances even though nature did not put them there and they feel that they are exactly where they belong. Either of these are plausible reasons for either argument and the real cause may vary case by case as each person is slightly different from the next and no two are exactly the same.  

Going native looks different for different people and I think that it can be a good and a bad thing as when one going native they may find a place of belonging as every person needs, however, one may lose all connections with their own culture in the process. Going native is also a bad thing when it is forced upon an entire culture as was the case among many tribes in the native people of both Alaska and American.

A Response to “Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy”

                I found this essay both overly grotesque and appalling. While I realize that people do get sex changes and it can be difficult or confusing of their family members, this essay contained many overly graphic sections.  I believe that for this to have been published it should have been toned down, published in a book  relevant to other people dealing with these same things, or even simple contained a preface warning readers of what was to come. I did not like this essay because I don’t agree with anything found within it. I think that people who receive sex changes may not be bad or awful people but they are confused about how or why they were made.

Many of the feelings that her brother was feeling was probably a result of his twisted childhood. If someone is starved of the love that all children need that as they grow up they will continue to look for that attention in an unhealthy manner. This is what her brother did as he had an operation to alter himself. However, this is also what the author started to do when she states that she wanted every feminine part of her to die.

I saw this essay more of a cry for help then as anything else. The author writes in a crazy manner that makes you feel as though you are crazy too as the subjects continually change. Her writing style certainly aided in conveying her feelings on the matter as she would accept her brother and then wonder about him and even herself and then accept it all again. From the look of the essay the author way simply trying to sort out her own thoughts and she kept coming back to the idea that if her brother had called before the operation she would have told him about oranges.

While I did not like much of the essay, I did like what she says about support groups: “everyone is out in the water in the same boat, but no one has a paddle”. This brings up an interesting train of thought as you ponder how useful support groups really are. I think that “support” groups of people who all have the same problem at about the same stage in their life can be rather unproductive and fits her analogy. However, paddles arrive when these groups have people of differing ages and walks of life. More paddles and a rudder appear as the group gains people who have made it through whatever the situation happens to be and can guide others. This gives a group power and direction, making it more productive and capable of helping broken people to heal, even when the waves come. The whole point of a support group is so that hurt or confused people realize that they are not the only ones and so that they realize that they can continue on.  

A Trip to the Museum

                After wandering about the museum and viewing the majority of the pieces therein, I found my way back upstairs. My favorite thing in the whole place happened to be a picture that intrigued me. The piece was an oil on canvas painting labeled “Upper Chena”. This painting was done by an artist named James Behlke, the label did not say where the artist was from but it did say that it was completed in 1984 and donated to the museum by another couple. The painting is displayed just above where the museum keeps boards to write on, on the little wall before entering the “Place Where You Go to Listen”.

                The painting is just as it’s name describes, a view of the “Upper Chena”. As a whole, this was a painting of a river starting right at the bottom edge of the frame and running up to disappear back between the trees and shrubs of one bank and the trees and shrubs of a nearby hill that is ablaze with the colors of fall. This particular painting got my attention because of the style in which the artist chose to represent the river and how he managed to capture the look of how it would actually look on a sunny fall morning. He managed to create an illusion in which the viewer believes that what they are looking at is truly wet and is actually flowing over and around the rocks. This has been done by showing where the water has hit the rocks and where the sun is reflecting off of the surface of the placid river.

                In my opinion, the focal point of the piece, although not centered, was the small group of white birch trees that were placed off to the right of the painting, almost on the edge. It was here that drew my eye, even though they were to the side, they stand out against the fall colors and are in the fore front, eclipsing the hill and dwarfing the shrubs around them.

                There are many forms of line used in this painting. Rippling lines show the current in the river, short lines show the pokiness of the spruce trees, longer close together lines show the density of the shrubs, rounded lines show the smooth surfaces of the big rocks, and long sweeping lines show the texture of the hill in the distance.

                My own experiences shape my view of this particular painting because I have seen parts of the upper Chena during almost every season. I may even have been to this very spot if the artist had painted a place on the river that is close to the road. There is also a lot of history that he included in his painting, not human history but that of nature. The artist captured how this place looked on this day in 1984, granted I have never been to this exact place as things change over the years, but I may have been to this location with older trees, smaller rocks, and perhaps a change in the curve of the river.