Read at least 10 poems from Seamus Heaney’s Seeing Things.
Read your new New Yorker
Post a reply in two parts:
1) Response (need not be lengthy) to what you enjoyed (beyond the cartoons) in The New Yorker this week and
2) “Top hits” from Seeing Things. Start to find synergies between 2 poems…
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November 23, 2009 at 1:20 PM
Top Hits:
“Glanmore Revisited” (33)
“The Rescue” (47)
“The Golden Bough”
I started with the Talk of the Town section and, like Kenny, I read the piece on involving abortion in the health care. It seems like such a weird concept to use such a completely different topic to garner republican votes for the bill, but I suppose it’s just politics. I wouldn’t say I favor that policy, but as a democrat it’s a tradeoff I would approve of.
I also read “Duck” because I like food and I was intrigued by the mental and emotional aspects of food–that foods can relate to memories. I can see the validity of this argument.
November 23, 2009 at 12:02 PM
Top Hits
I.I.87 (22)
Field of Vision (24)
A Basket of Chestnuts (26)
I read Talk of the Town (37) discussing the abortion portion of the proposed health care bill. They made an amendment to delete government funds for abortion, which was needed to garner Republican vote for the main bill. I agree with this amendment that people should be allowed to abort, but need to pay for it on their own. However, if people cannot afford abortion, they may hurt themselves in attempt to do it on their own.
November 23, 2009 at 10:40 AM
on food and memories….
Bear with me as I quote the article “Duck” on page 58, ” …I am convinced that the foods we find most delicious are the ones that trigger memories and associations.”
Cream of Tuna is a universally disgusting food. Tuna, with its reeky smell fresh out of the can, is blended with butter and other artery-clogging condiments that I typically avoid like the plague all to form a simmering pot of tuna gloop in a saucepan on the stove. It is then ladled out and generously spread over wheat toast where if it sits for too long, leaves the toast an unappealing soggy mess. Yet I love this food. Why? For the very reason Heston Blumethal articulates in the above quote. Cream of Tuna is a signature KittyKat Riess (aka Grammie) dish. Despite the fact that my Grammie could make a cardboard box delectable, it is the memories I associate with Cream of Tuna that make it so scrumptious. Flashbacks to childhood lunches between five-year-old-little-girl fantasy worlds and late night summer dinners with my grandparents on the screened porch and are what flood my mind whenever I take a bite out of the potentially soggy, tuna covered piece of toast. Yum.
1. Three Drawings
2. A Basket of Chestnuts
3. Glanmore Revisited
(Both 2 and 3 mentios 1973….why?)
November 23, 2009 at 2:11 AM
Top Hits:
“Wheels within Wheels” pg. 48
“A Pillowed Head” pg. 40
“Field of Vision” pg. 24
From reading a few of the poems, I noticed that many of them have a tone of nostalgia, as Heaney makes several references to childhood memories, such as a bike being overturned, and the wheels still going (Wheels within Wheels) and playing baseball with friends (Markings, p. 10). Heaney also takes it to the next level by relating these childhood memories to life.
From this week’s New Yorker, I enjoyed the article titled Duck p.58. The author discusses a memory of going to a restaurant and eating a particular dish and loving it. He now realizes how terrible the dish actually was, but acknowledges that, “Nostalgia has always played an important part in the tasting menu…I am convinced that the foods we find most delicious are the ones that trigger memories and associations.” This also tied back to themes of nostalgia in Heaney’s writings.
I also enjoyed flipping through the first few pages of advertisements for the new myTouch 3G by Tmobile.
November 23, 2009 at 1:31 AM
I read Yiyun Li’s fiction piece “Alone.” It was very interesting in its description of the relationship between strangers, and family that feels like strangers. There was also a nice build up where Li hinted at an “incident” and then unfolded it at the end – it really hooked me, especially because the story began as a somewhat dull divorce/marital unhappiness story, so i was pleasantly surprised.
top hits:
-”Markings” p. 10
-”Man and Boy” p. 16
-”An August Night” p. 23
-”The School Bag” p. 32
I noticed that in both “Markings” and “Man and Boy” Heaney relates his father to childhood. I am curious to follow this trend.
November 23, 2009 at 12:28 AM
“Man and Boy” pg. 16
“The Journey Back” – pg. 9
“The Rescue” pg. 47
I read the article “Out to Lunch” pg. 29. In this article Nick Paumgarten is discussing the two pilots who got carried away on their laptops in the cockpit when they were suppose to be landing a plain. He then proposes an experiment done at Western Washington U. called “in-attentional blindness”., a state of mind when you are so absorbed in an activity you forget really obvious stuff around you. They experiment with a clown on a unicycle on the college campus. 3 out of 4 people texting on their cell phones failed to see the clown. Read this article… there are many funny examples of this blindness that take place (for example. a burglar who stole some diamonds and decided to check his facebook page at the house. He forgot to log out when he was done.)
November 22, 2009 at 11:39 PM
Top Hits
“I.I.87″ 22
“Bedside Reading” 38
“Man and Boy” 16
I also read the article, “Funny Food” by Calvin Trillin. I was browsing through the magazine and saw the word “poutine” and knew I had to read the article. Growing up as a hockey player, I used to travel to Canada a couple of times a year for tournaments and when we went, we always had poutine while we were there. In the United States we have fries as side meals but in Canada, people order just poutine as their meal. It was really fun to read about something I forgot about and used to love.
November 22, 2009 at 10:19 PM
I read “Lunch With M.” by John Colapinto. It was interesting to read that Michelin hotel-and-restaurant guide was not received as well in America as it was in Europe. It was also cool to read about how the Michelin guide inspectors blend in with the customers at the restaurant. I think the guide is a bit too strict in their rating though. It says only 81 restaurants “in the world” have received three stars. I think the “Zagat” has the right idea by surveying the customers. But I guess some responces could be biased.
“The Thimble” p. 51
“An Architect” p.69
“The Butter-Print” p.53
November 22, 2009 at 7:33 PM
Top Hits
1. “A Pillowed Head” pg 40
2. “The Rescue” pg. 47
3. “The Schoolbag” pg.32
I decided to read the article titled “Rice” by Jhumpa Lahiri. The article was really compelling as she talked about her father and his rice dis “pulao”. In the beginning she describes how he views intricate details as very important in everyday life. This focus to detail transcends itself in his creation of his “pulao” dish, which he tends to make when there are “annaprasans.” I really liked this article, because through the mode of rice she was able to describe the importance of her father. As his “pulao” dish is to “annaprasans”, he is to her…
November 22, 2009 at 7:33 PM
Top Hits
1. “A Pillowed Head” pg 40
2. “The Rescue” pg. 47
3. “The Schoolbag” pg.32
I decided to read the article titled “Rice” by Jhumpa Lahiri. The article was really compelling as she talked about her father and his rice dis “pulao”. In the beginning she describes how he views intricate details as very important in everyday life. This focus to detail transcends itself in his creation of his “pulao” dish, which he tends to make when there are “annaprasans.” I really liked this article, because through the mode of rice she was able to describe the importance of her father. As his “pulao” dish is to “annaprasans”, he is to her…
November 22, 2009 at 3:22 PM
Top Hits:
“Field of Vision” pg. 24
“The Ash Plant” pg. 21
“Man and Boy” pg. 16
I happened to stop upon the article “Spit Cake” just because of the name. Looking at the picture below the title, I was even more confused because it looked like pieces of wood cut up. Mimi Sheraton talks about her first experience with the cake. How it isn’t a wonder that Germans call this cake a “tree cake” because it could be three of four feet tall. But I just wanted to know why they would ever call a cake a Spit Cake. So I learned it was because the cake sat on a “rotisserie that spins in front of a wood or gas fire as the baker ladles over it anywhere from 10 to 36 layers of sunny batter.” So there you go. This sounds like quite the cake.
November 22, 2009 at 2:23 PM
Top Hits
“Man and Boy” – pg. 16
“Field of Vision” – pg. 24
“The pitchfork” 25
An article that caught my attention was “Funny Food” by Calvin Trillin. The article describes the national food phenomenon in Canada called poutine. It is pronounced poo-TIN and it is a dish of french fries covered in cheese curds and brown gravy. Poutine has become so appealing that national franchises in Canada now have this dish on their menus. It was originally invented in Quebec, but now it is popular throughout Canada. However, the dish is quite unhealthy. A weight loss program in Canada analyzed a standard poutine dish and found it to have 970 calories, 54 grams of fat, and more than 2600 mg of sodium. Calvin Comfort sarcastically said about this dish, “If you ate it often, it would kill you.”
I found this article to be very interesting and I now really want to taste this dish, despite its unhealthy ingredients.
November 22, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Top Hits:
“Field of Vision” – pg. 24
“An August Night” – pg. 23
“The Journey Back” – pg. 9
I enjoyed reading the poems in this week’s issue of “The New Yorker.” However, the one on page ninety-six left me slightly confused. Like many others we have read this year,”Exercise” by James Longenbach. The poem seems to be a medley of ancient Greek history, plagaristic history, and italicised phrases that are sort of non sequitur. In all honesty, I do not particularly like this poem, but its unique format definitely intrigued me.
November 22, 2009 at 12:41 PM
Top Hits from “Seeing Things”:
-”Field of Vision” (p. 24)
-”The Settle Bed” (p.30)
-”The Rescue” (p. 47)
While flipping through the “The New Yorker”, I stumbled upon an article titled “Spit Cake”. Underneath the title was the phrase, “it’s so much better than it sounds”. This seemed so unusual, that I became curious, and went on to read the article. The author of the article even shows a picture of spit cake, and states that they are usually three to four feet tall. The rest of the article discusses the origin and history of the spit cake. While I found this interesting, I was really surprised that an article in “The New Yorker” was written about a type of cake.
November 22, 2009 at 12:41 PM
Top Hits from “Seeing Things”:
-”Field of Vision” (p. 24)
-”The Settle Bed” (p.30)
-”The Rescue” (p. 47)
While flipping through the “The New Yorker”, I stumbled upon an article titled “Spit Cake”. Underneath the title was the phrase, “it’s so much better than it sounds”. This seemed so unusual, that I became curious, and went on to read the article. The author of the article even shows a picture of spit cake, and states that they are usually three to four feet tall. The rest of the article discusses the origin and history of the spit cake. While I found this interesting, I was really surprised that an article in “The New Yorker” was written about a type of cake.
November 21, 2009 at 3:48 PM
Top Hits:
Part 1 of “Three Drawings” (The Point) pg. 12
“The Schoolbag” pg. 32
“The Rescue” pg. 47
My favorite piece of writing in the most recent New Yorker os “Duc”k by Heston Blumenthal (pg. 58). Actually, ‘favorite’ is probably not the most appropriate word. I was caught halfway between being fascinated and revolted.
While the creative process of pulling together such an interesting dish was incredible to read about, thinking about the different ways in which one could serve duck made me a bit unhappy. I very briefly (for a little less than a week) owned three ducklings while in China. I traveled on buses and in trucks with them for days before finding a suitable farm for them to live on. The idea of eating Henrietta, Moses, or Duck is not something I like to dwell on.