Low Style
“Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway” has become somewhat of a sleeper hit on YouTube when compared to the success of other videos such as “Movin’ Like Bernie”. It was first posted on March 5th, 2005 and it has since garnered 554,416 views1(Gripp). The video was originally taken from an unnamed Japanese reality show which prominently featured a chimp in overalls and a helmet riding around in circles on a Segway. This video was then set to Parry Gripp’s song “Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway” and it was subsequently posted on the web. It has always been one of my favorite videos because it is very funny in my opinion. I’ve been known to sing it as I walk around campus on my way to my next class.
Rhetorical Situation: The exigence in this piece is that I am trying to teach someone about the YouTube video “Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway”. My audience is anyone who hasn’t seen the video because I am trying to inform them about the video and my love of it. The constraint of the piece is my actual knowledge of the video (the audience expects that I’m knowledgeable about it because I am writing about it).
Middle Style
“Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway” is one of the best YouTube videos around; it’s a shame it has only gotten 554,416 views2(Gripp). It is one of my favorite YouTube videos and has been ever since my sister showed it to me a few years ago. How could anyone watch that video and not fall in love with that adorable chimp and his Segway? How could anyone watch that video and not want to give that brave little guy a hug3? It also helps that Parry Gripp’s song of the same name provides a wonderful backdrop for the video. There’s something about that chimp and his Segway that captures an essential element of modern American culture; even though the world may be bogged down by hatred, strife, and war, we can always find comfort in the random hilarity of a video like “Chimpanzee riding on a Segway”.
Rhetorical Situation: The exegence in this piece was that I was trying to figure out why so few people have seen the video even though it is a great video. My audience once again was anyone who hasn’t seen it or the people I have talked to who didn’t like the video. My constraint was that I had to provide a convincing argument as to why it was so ridiculous that so few people had seen the video or that so many people hate it.
High Style
“Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway” is far superior to the other garbage on YouTube such as “Movin’ Like Bernie”. Perry Grip outdoes himself with the music for this video; this is the best goddamn motherfucking song he’s written since “Bun Bun Bunny Bun”, “Cat Flushing a Toilet”, and “Up Butt Coconut”—That’s right it’s even better than fucking “Spaghetti Cat (I Weep for You)” (Gripp). . But forget about the song, it’s the video that really counts here. This chimp—oh god how can I ever put into words—is the epitome of beauty4. This chimp is the fucking Vanna White to my Pat Sajak5. I don’t know where I would be in life without the direction this courageous chimp provides me through risking life and limb riding around on his Segway. There is not a single day in my life where this chimp and his Segway doesn’t inspire me in everything I do; in every step, breath, thought, and even in every fucking peanut I break open his inspiration is present6. The best part of my day is when I finally get back to my dorm room desktop and get to watch that beautiful little chimp gracefully ride off and disappear into the sunset.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
flirty girl fitness
Flirty Girl Fitness is about learning how to be sexy while maintaining a top- notch physique. Everyone usually asks Flirty Girl Fitness participants why they get involved with the program and it was Jennifer who said that it got her “in touch with the fun-loving, exotic woman within”. Tracy said it was because “ it really sculpts your abs into something sexy”. When I get asked this—and it happens quite often because I am an instructor--I usually respond with a combination of the two. But really any reason is acceptable for my students to have. As long as they’ve got a reason for being in my class, I say “Hey! That’s great, you’re welcome to be in my class.”
Every time that Richard Simmon’s puts out a new Sweating to the Oldies tape I am glad because I will get the chance to exercise to it, and I am upset because all of my students will start showing up to my classes with a jew fro, an ill-fitting jersey, and an unusually peppy attitude towards the workout. I admire Simmon’s work, its simple and effective, with lots of great dance moves, songs to dance to, and an elegance to it, like an 8th grade mixer. It takes me back to my days working out back in the seventies— back when I’d be sweating to “Great Balls of Fire” and other classics (instead being stuck with Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”). But this just doesn’t come out as being sexy when my students try to imitate it. Yes, yes, it’s great when Richard Simmons does it but not when anyone else does it.
Flirty Girl Fitness should never be done on Thanksgiving. You just can’t feel sexy after a Thanksgiving dinner. Your food baby (an almost inevitable consequence of a Thanksgiving dinner) is going to be larger than a bloated Eggo waffle. There’s no way you’re going to be exercising on the pole that day. Give it up. Ignore that guilt trippingly stern inner drill sergeant telling you that you have to work out. Trust me, why set your work out up for failure when you could just do it another day?
Every time that Richard Simmon’s puts out a new Sweating to the Oldies tape I am glad because I will get the chance to exercise to it, and I am upset because all of my students will start showing up to my classes with a jew fro, an ill-fitting jersey, and an unusually peppy attitude towards the workout. I admire Simmon’s work, its simple and effective, with lots of great dance moves, songs to dance to, and an elegance to it, like an 8th grade mixer. It takes me back to my days working out back in the seventies— back when I’d be sweating to “Great Balls of Fire” and other classics (instead being stuck with Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”). But this just doesn’t come out as being sexy when my students try to imitate it. Yes, yes, it’s great when Richard Simmons does it but not when anyone else does it.
Flirty Girl Fitness should never be done on Thanksgiving. You just can’t feel sexy after a Thanksgiving dinner. Your food baby (an almost inevitable consequence of a Thanksgiving dinner) is going to be larger than a bloated Eggo waffle. There’s no way you’re going to be exercising on the pole that day. Give it up. Ignore that guilt trippingly stern inner drill sergeant telling you that you have to work out. Trust me, why set your work out up for failure when you could just do it another day?
Sunday, November 27, 2011
David Sedaris
"My mother set the picnic table with insect-repelling candles, and just as she started to eat she caught me chewing a hunk of beef the size of a coin purse. Gorging always set her off, but on this occasion it bothered her more than usual. "I hope you choke to death," she said. I was twelve years old, and paused thinking, Did I hear her correctly? "That's right, piggy, suffocate" "
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
I love the vignette that Sedaris creates in this passage and especially how he plays around in the cultural arena. There is no way in heck anyone’s mom would ever say that in adherence to cultural norms/roles and Sedaris' mom shockingly deviates from them by telling the 12 year old Sedaris to "choke to death", which creates humor. In this blog post I am going to try to achieve the same effect by writing about people who have unreasonable and rude reactions to things, playing around in the cultural arena and using a deadpan tone in the low style much in the same way Sedaris does to achieve humor.
I was sitting in a lecture hall in Tydings taking my microeconomics exam and Clark, one of my best friends, was sitting in the desk next to me. I had a cold at the time so every few minutes or so I'd cough a bit, nothing too distracting or disconcerting. Well about half way through the exam I had a small fit of coughing, and there was something about this one and not the others that just set Clark off.
"I hope you cough out a lung," he said.
I had to do a double take because I could believe he said that.
"That's right, wheezy, cough it out."
That reminded me of one time when I was visiting my grandpa in the extended stay ward of Sibley Hospital. Next to his room was an elderly woman whose daughter brought her granddaughter to see every few days. One day I overheard the granddaughter, who couldn't be older than eight, talking to the elderly woman.
"Why can't you just die already? Mommy told me it would happen soon but it’s already been a month since then and every time we come out here I have to miss watching Hannah Montana"
Good God, I thought to myself, What the heck has this world come to?
I know what its come to. In my art class on last Monday, my art teacher assigned us our final. We have to do forty-five compositions all of either frogs, manhole covers, dandelions, apples, or ants. She said she was going to give us fifty but decided to give us a break and only assign forty-five, and to repay her we had to do them all by the Monday after Thanksgiving. She asked the class how we felt about the assignment after she explained it.
"Mrs. Jacobs, hold on a second while I go ram my head into a wall," said a student responded.
He stood up and proceeded to ram his head into the wall.
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
I love the vignette that Sedaris creates in this passage and especially how he plays around in the cultural arena. There is no way in heck anyone’s mom would ever say that in adherence to cultural norms/roles and Sedaris' mom shockingly deviates from them by telling the 12 year old Sedaris to "choke to death", which creates humor. In this blog post I am going to try to achieve the same effect by writing about people who have unreasonable and rude reactions to things, playing around in the cultural arena and using a deadpan tone in the low style much in the same way Sedaris does to achieve humor.
I was sitting in a lecture hall in Tydings taking my microeconomics exam and Clark, one of my best friends, was sitting in the desk next to me. I had a cold at the time so every few minutes or so I'd cough a bit, nothing too distracting or disconcerting. Well about half way through the exam I had a small fit of coughing, and there was something about this one and not the others that just set Clark off.
"I hope you cough out a lung," he said.
I had to do a double take because I could believe he said that.
"That's right, wheezy, cough it out."
That reminded me of one time when I was visiting my grandpa in the extended stay ward of Sibley Hospital. Next to his room was an elderly woman whose daughter brought her granddaughter to see every few days. One day I overheard the granddaughter, who couldn't be older than eight, talking to the elderly woman.
"Why can't you just die already? Mommy told me it would happen soon but it’s already been a month since then and every time we come out here I have to miss watching Hannah Montana"
Good God, I thought to myself, What the heck has this world come to?
I know what its come to. In my art class on last Monday, my art teacher assigned us our final. We have to do forty-five compositions all of either frogs, manhole covers, dandelions, apples, or ants. She said she was going to give us fifty but decided to give us a break and only assign forty-five, and to repay her we had to do them all by the Monday after Thanksgiving. She asked the class how we felt about the assignment after she explained it.
"Mrs. Jacobs, hold on a second while I go ram my head into a wall," said a student responded.
He stood up and proceeded to ram his head into the wall.
Irony
"And the irony is that they wrote better without access to my quotes."
-Steve Carlton
One thing in writing that I've never been able to grasp is the concept of irony even though I see it in use every single day. Holcomb and Killingworth say that irony is the "most complex and difficult" of tropes to accomplish (94). They themselves don't have a perfect way of defining it, saying that it is a trope that involves "inversions and reversals" and that it "turns standard meaning and expectations upside down" (94). I felt inspired by this quote to practice writing ironic statements by writing a ton of them for this blog post in the format of Steve's quote, which uses irony to create humor.
And the irony is that while Glenn Beck says that Obama is a fascist, he's actually more of a socialist.
And the irony is that I chose to write examples of irony, something I'm horrible at writing, even though this damn thing is due in 14 minutes.
And the irony is that the one time I didn't check that the toilet seat was down before I sat down on it, I fell in because it was left up.
And the irony is that seat belts actually lead to more car crashes because of the false sense of security they provide that gives drivers more incentive to drive dangerously.
And the irony is that before the Revolutionary War, colonists actually paid fewer taxes than British Citizens.
And the irony is that I'm fucking sick of irony 150 words in after I was excited to do this exercise because it would give me the chance to write something funny.
And the irony is that one church that formed during the Protestant Reformation banning sex wiped themselves out.
And the irony is that the American Flag that is hanging on my house's front door was made in Taiwan.
And the irony is that I told myself I wouldn't wait to do homework until the last minute for fear of the dreaded writers block.
And the irony is that Luke was Leia's brother.... wait didn't they hook up in A New Hope? ...what the shit?
And the irony is that Ricky Martin turned out to be gay (Not that there is anything wrong with that).
And the irony is that even though nearly every single elementary history lesson I've ever had claims the Civil War was not fought over slavery even though it was. The state right to do what? Oh that’s right hold slaves.
And the irony is that dogs actually can look up (optimism for the win!).
And the irony is that in Up for fucking once the dog didn't die (I'm still reeling from Where the Red Fern Grows).
And the irony is that I wasted so much time learning Tai Kwon Do to pick up hot Asian chicks and it didn't pan out at all because apparently football players and that asshole guy who picks up the guitar at the party and plays "Wonderwall" get all the girls.
And the irony is that I actually love The Gilmore Girls.
And the irony is that my dad's Ford F-150 has a Vineyard Vines bumper sticker on it.
-Steve Carlton
One thing in writing that I've never been able to grasp is the concept of irony even though I see it in use every single day. Holcomb and Killingworth say that irony is the "most complex and difficult" of tropes to accomplish (94). They themselves don't have a perfect way of defining it, saying that it is a trope that involves "inversions and reversals" and that it "turns standard meaning and expectations upside down" (94). I felt inspired by this quote to practice writing ironic statements by writing a ton of them for this blog post in the format of Steve's quote, which uses irony to create humor.
And the irony is that while Glenn Beck says that Obama is a fascist, he's actually more of a socialist.
And the irony is that I chose to write examples of irony, something I'm horrible at writing, even though this damn thing is due in 14 minutes.
And the irony is that the one time I didn't check that the toilet seat was down before I sat down on it, I fell in because it was left up.
And the irony is that seat belts actually lead to more car crashes because of the false sense of security they provide that gives drivers more incentive to drive dangerously.
And the irony is that before the Revolutionary War, colonists actually paid fewer taxes than British Citizens.
And the irony is that I'm fucking sick of irony 150 words in after I was excited to do this exercise because it would give me the chance to write something funny.
And the irony is that one church that formed during the Protestant Reformation banning sex wiped themselves out.
And the irony is that the American Flag that is hanging on my house's front door was made in Taiwan.
And the irony is that I told myself I wouldn't wait to do homework until the last minute for fear of the dreaded writers block.
And the irony is that Luke was Leia's brother.... wait didn't they hook up in A New Hope? ...what the shit?
And the irony is that Ricky Martin turned out to be gay (Not that there is anything wrong with that).
And the irony is that even though nearly every single elementary history lesson I've ever had claims the Civil War was not fought over slavery even though it was. The state right to do what? Oh that’s right hold slaves.
And the irony is that dogs actually can look up (optimism for the win!).
And the irony is that in Up for fucking once the dog didn't die (I'm still reeling from Where the Red Fern Grows).
And the irony is that I wasted so much time learning Tai Kwon Do to pick up hot Asian chicks and it didn't pan out at all because apparently football players and that asshole guy who picks up the guitar at the party and plays "Wonderwall" get all the girls.
And the irony is that I actually love The Gilmore Girls.
And the irony is that my dad's Ford F-150 has a Vineyard Vines bumper sticker on it.
"He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
-Shylock, Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
This is one of the most brilliant monologues ever written by William Shakespeare and there is much to analyze in it. The monologue is told from the perspective of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who has been betrayed by Antonio, a Christian who he lent money to. In the cultural arena, Shakespeare adheres to the conventions that normally are used in order to add emphasis and force to a speech. Shylock frequently uses isocolon and parallism in lists (i.e. "mocked at my gains, scorned my nation" in keeping with established conventions in making a speech. Shylock also uses lists of rhetorical questions, another convention of speeches, in combination with isocolon, anaphora, and climax (i.e. if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?) in order to add even more force to what he is saying.
Shakespeare frequently combines many figures together, usually in the same phrase, in order to add force to what Shylock is saying. I think the most powerful example of this is in this series of lines: " If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge". The most obvious figure here is parallelism and anaphora, which serves to show how Shylock believes that both Christians and Jews should receive the same treatment. Another one that is clear is the usage of antimetabole ("If a Jew wrong a Christian...If a Christian wrong a Jew"), which further adds towards this equality Shylock wishes to see. The isolation of the word "revenge" by itself in its own sentence adds emphasis to how Shylock believes he is justified in taking revenge against the Christians, and when Shakespeare has Shylock break the parallelism by saying "Why, revenge" the second time, he draws emphasis (in a deviation) to how Shylock thinks he is justified in taking revenge on Antonio.
I think it’s interesting to look at this monologue and discuss whether it functions in the high, middle, or low style. One could argue it is in the high style because of how many figures there are crammed into it, but on the other hand it adheres to most of the characteristics of the low style, especially in how Shylock relies mostly relatively "concrete and specific nouns" and "action verbs" with "easily processed sentence structures" (Holcomb and Killingsworth 74).
On one footing, this monologue is Shylock addressing Salarino in the context of the play, but on another it is Shylock addressing social inequalities based on religion. I have only begun to analyze what is probably one of the greatest monologues in the history of theater.
-Shylock, Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
This is one of the most brilliant monologues ever written by William Shakespeare and there is much to analyze in it. The monologue is told from the perspective of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who has been betrayed by Antonio, a Christian who he lent money to. In the cultural arena, Shakespeare adheres to the conventions that normally are used in order to add emphasis and force to a speech. Shylock frequently uses isocolon and parallism in lists (i.e. "mocked at my gains, scorned my nation" in keeping with established conventions in making a speech. Shylock also uses lists of rhetorical questions, another convention of speeches, in combination with isocolon, anaphora, and climax (i.e. if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?) in order to add even more force to what he is saying.
Shakespeare frequently combines many figures together, usually in the same phrase, in order to add force to what Shylock is saying. I think the most powerful example of this is in this series of lines: " If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge". The most obvious figure here is parallelism and anaphora, which serves to show how Shylock believes that both Christians and Jews should receive the same treatment. Another one that is clear is the usage of antimetabole ("If a Jew wrong a Christian...If a Christian wrong a Jew"), which further adds towards this equality Shylock wishes to see. The isolation of the word "revenge" by itself in its own sentence adds emphasis to how Shylock believes he is justified in taking revenge against the Christians, and when Shakespeare has Shylock break the parallelism by saying "Why, revenge" the second time, he draws emphasis (in a deviation) to how Shylock thinks he is justified in taking revenge on Antonio.
I think it’s interesting to look at this monologue and discuss whether it functions in the high, middle, or low style. One could argue it is in the high style because of how many figures there are crammed into it, but on the other hand it adheres to most of the characteristics of the low style, especially in how Shylock relies mostly relatively "concrete and specific nouns" and "action verbs" with "easily processed sentence structures" (Holcomb and Killingsworth 74).
On one footing, this monologue is Shylock addressing Salarino in the context of the play, but on another it is Shylock addressing social inequalities based on religion. I have only begun to analyze what is probably one of the greatest monologues in the history of theater.
Jonathan Safran Foer
" I have always thought of myself as very potent and generative. I have many girls, believe me, and they all have a different name for me. One dubs me Baby, not because I am a baby, but because she attends to me. Another dubs me All Night. Do you want to know why? I have a girl who calls me Currency, because I disseminate so much currency around her."
-Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything is Illuminated where Alex, the narrator, introduces himself. We find out later on in the book that Alex is a native Ukrainian that speaks a very minimal amount of English, but Foer implies this brilliantly through Alex's butchering of the English language throughout his narration before he explicitly states it. One way he does this is by having Alex speak for the most part in the low style, operating largely in the textual arena, almost exclusively using simple sentence structures and complex ones that are not hard to understand, and nearly every single sentence follows the subject before predicate sentence structure without any deviation and minimal usage of subordination. It is in the cultural arena that we generalize this simplistic usage of syntax as belonging to someone that is learning English as a second language. Another way Foer does this is through Alex's improper usage of words such as "disseminate", "potent", "generative”, “dubs" and "currency" that have the right dictionary definition that he wants but are not the best choice of word that he could use. Alex, instead of saying spending money, says that he "disseminates" currency, which means the same thing, but sounds weird and ill-fitting when read by a native English speaker who is used to saying "spending money" instead of "disseminating currency"(another example of Foer playing around in the cultural arena and reader's expectations to create interesting deviations to create humor).
There are multiple reasons why Foer has Alex speak in a bastardized form of the English language. One obvious one is to create humor, mostly by deviating from traditional ways of speaking like when he says he is "potent and generative" instead of saying he is attractive to women (social/cultural arena). Another is to establish Alex's humorous and womanizing character; from the way Alex talks, you can just picture this slick talking stylish and young Eastern European man that barely speaks any English, and Foer does this all without a single use of imagery to describe Alex. Foer creates a very strong vignette of Alex without ever using imagery, which is very impressive; he provides the necessary descriptions for us to create our own image of Alex, which is stronger than if he were to do it for us. Foer also establishes Alex's footing to the reader as being one where Alex is having a conversation with us telling his life story by having Alex speak in the low style, which lends itself towards conversational writing.
-Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
This is an excerpt from the first chapter of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything is Illuminated where Alex, the narrator, introduces himself. We find out later on in the book that Alex is a native Ukrainian that speaks a very minimal amount of English, but Foer implies this brilliantly through Alex's butchering of the English language throughout his narration before he explicitly states it. One way he does this is by having Alex speak for the most part in the low style, operating largely in the textual arena, almost exclusively using simple sentence structures and complex ones that are not hard to understand, and nearly every single sentence follows the subject before predicate sentence structure without any deviation and minimal usage of subordination. It is in the cultural arena that we generalize this simplistic usage of syntax as belonging to someone that is learning English as a second language. Another way Foer does this is through Alex's improper usage of words such as "disseminate", "potent", "generative”, “dubs" and "currency" that have the right dictionary definition that he wants but are not the best choice of word that he could use. Alex, instead of saying spending money, says that he "disseminates" currency, which means the same thing, but sounds weird and ill-fitting when read by a native English speaker who is used to saying "spending money" instead of "disseminating currency"(another example of Foer playing around in the cultural arena and reader's expectations to create interesting deviations to create humor).
There are multiple reasons why Foer has Alex speak in a bastardized form of the English language. One obvious one is to create humor, mostly by deviating from traditional ways of speaking like when he says he is "potent and generative" instead of saying he is attractive to women (social/cultural arena). Another is to establish Alex's humorous and womanizing character; from the way Alex talks, you can just picture this slick talking stylish and young Eastern European man that barely speaks any English, and Foer does this all without a single use of imagery to describe Alex. Foer creates a very strong vignette of Alex without ever using imagery, which is very impressive; he provides the necessary descriptions for us to create our own image of Alex, which is stronger than if he were to do it for us. Foer also establishes Alex's footing to the reader as being one where Alex is having a conversation with us telling his life story by having Alex speak in the low style, which lends itself towards conversational writing.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Jay McInerney- Writing in the Second Person
“Eventually you ascend the stairs to the street. You think of Plato's pilgrims climbing out of the cave, from the shadow world of appearances toward things as they really are, and you wonder if it is possible to change in this life. Being with a philosopher makes you think.”
- Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City
For this blog entry I am deciding to write a piece of a story in the second person after thumbing through the pages of Bright Lights, Big City which is one of the few novels written in the second person. I am specifically trying to capture the inner monologue that Mc Inerney creates by writing in the second person, to capture that weird notion that you have a very vocal super ego that is telling you what to think and what you are doing. I am trying to establish the footing as being one where the narrator is an all knowing voice in the reader's head that controls what they think and do.
You fucking hate buying pants. It ranks up there with finding a flaming bag of dog shit on your front porch and being chased by a roving band of poop slinging capuchins as being one of the worst things you can go through. Every time you need a new pair, you end up spending hours in the mall trying on different pairs of pants only to find out that the only pair that fits costs 60$. "Fuck me in the beard" you think to yourself as you drive out of the mall's parking lot furious that you aren't coming home with a brand new pair of slacks.
You don't want to put up with that stupidity again so you decide to order a new pair of corduroys off of the Internet. You Google men's pants and press the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. You are brought to Bonobos', the premier men's pants brand, website. You don't see a tab for corduroys so you click on the pants tab at the top of the page. The computer screen you are looking at displays hundreds of pairs of pants. You read off some of the names of the pants: "El Khakitans", "The Grape Wall of Chino", "Panta Marias", "Captain Planet It", "The Provolone Ranger". "What the fuck is this shit" you think to yourself, feeling as lost, confused, and violated as every kid who grew up in the 80's did when they found out that Pee Wee Herman was caught wanking himself in a porn theater. You are frustrated that you can't find a single pair of corduroys in the midst of all this ridiculousness.
Beaten down and hopeless, you give up on Bonobos and decide to try looking for a pair of cords on Old Navy's website. “Thank the Lord Jesus!" you think to yourself as you find out that they do indeed have cords for sale. You try to add a pair to your cart when it asks you what color do you want. You can get either "Toasty", "Coffee Grounds", or "Barnswallow". "Fuck everything" you say to yourself as you give up on buying pants and relieve your stress by walking out onto the street and punting the first small dog you see.
- Jay McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City
For this blog entry I am deciding to write a piece of a story in the second person after thumbing through the pages of Bright Lights, Big City which is one of the few novels written in the second person. I am specifically trying to capture the inner monologue that Mc Inerney creates by writing in the second person, to capture that weird notion that you have a very vocal super ego that is telling you what to think and what you are doing. I am trying to establish the footing as being one where the narrator is an all knowing voice in the reader's head that controls what they think and do.
You fucking hate buying pants. It ranks up there with finding a flaming bag of dog shit on your front porch and being chased by a roving band of poop slinging capuchins as being one of the worst things you can go through. Every time you need a new pair, you end up spending hours in the mall trying on different pairs of pants only to find out that the only pair that fits costs 60$. "Fuck me in the beard" you think to yourself as you drive out of the mall's parking lot furious that you aren't coming home with a brand new pair of slacks.
You don't want to put up with that stupidity again so you decide to order a new pair of corduroys off of the Internet. You Google men's pants and press the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. You are brought to Bonobos', the premier men's pants brand, website. You don't see a tab for corduroys so you click on the pants tab at the top of the page. The computer screen you are looking at displays hundreds of pairs of pants. You read off some of the names of the pants: "El Khakitans", "The Grape Wall of Chino", "Panta Marias", "Captain Planet It", "The Provolone Ranger". "What the fuck is this shit" you think to yourself, feeling as lost, confused, and violated as every kid who grew up in the 80's did when they found out that Pee Wee Herman was caught wanking himself in a porn theater. You are frustrated that you can't find a single pair of corduroys in the midst of all this ridiculousness.
Beaten down and hopeless, you give up on Bonobos and decide to try looking for a pair of cords on Old Navy's website. “Thank the Lord Jesus!" you think to yourself as you find out that they do indeed have cords for sale. You try to add a pair to your cart when it asks you what color do you want. You can get either "Toasty", "Coffee Grounds", or "Barnswallow". "Fuck everything" you say to yourself as you give up on buying pants and relieve your stress by walking out onto the street and punting the first small dog you see.
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