Memoir -- Installment One

"Christian, are you coming?" Mom shouted from across the parking lot with a hint of haste in her voice. She wasn't usually in this much of a hurry.

"Yeah!" I shouted back, thinking nothing of where we were going, or what we were doing here.

Near-post-infancy in small towns are routinely mundane. It goes like this: Wake up at 9 o'clock, get dressed, eat cereal (or some other sugary treat), watch whatever palette of colors amazed me on the television, spend a couple hours at the local preschool, go home, eat 'supper,' then head to bed.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

 The sun crept between the unique cracks and crevices of the trees, yielding a series a godly rays on a secluded structure, beneath an oak canopy that almost omitted the cloudless sky above. I was too young to even remember the time of day, let alone care. Like I said, I didn't know what we were doing here - it simply wasn't important to a three-year-old. I let my parents take care of the adult-business kind of stuff - they were better at it, anyway. The parking lot presented itself  in a manner that I wasn't usually exposed to: a wide, open lot, free to run around in, with the 1-story structure overlooking the two or three cars parked there.

I had been awoken especially early for some event or meeting at the preschool my parents enrolled me in, so naturally, a spite-filled three-year-old me tended to slow down his routine noticeably: two extra minutes to get dressed...an extra minute or so brushing my teeth, even if I didn't like the overbearing taste of mint; I didn't care, it was worth showing what waking me up early meant. An extra four or five minutes getting dressed and dragging myself down the stairs, only to eat cereal at the nautical velocity of a multi-ton cargo ship. By the time the last drop of milk left my bowl, we were practically already on our way out to the car.
By the time we'd arrived, we were noticeably late. Restless as usual, I hopped out of our car, proceeding to skip towards the school entrance which, obviously, yielded more efficient speeds than walking.

At this point, it should be noted that the school decorated the patio near the front entrance with a cactus to display; yet, balancing on the concrete bricks surrounding the cactus was a very inviting thought. Naturally, I did.

And I fell. Into the cactus.

I woke up a few hours later, strapped to a hospital bed, with a series of nurses wielding tweezers pulling each individual needle out of my body, and, despite the incredible pain, led me to one of my first life lessons: if something can go wrong, it will almost always go wrong.

Within a few more hours, I was released from the hospital and returned home.

Wash. Rinse Repeat.

Memoir Topic Choice

After some thinking on what kind of topics I'd like to discuss in our assigned memoirs, I've decided I'm going to talk about my thoughts on whether or not "everything happens for a reason" from certain events in my life, and more specifically, why.

Perception is the New Black

“The pen is mightier than the sword.” No doubt, this is an unmistakably true statement, especially if you’re an avid writer. And when it’s fleshed out, a new perception comes to light: the pen is in fact the sword. Maybe it’s not the Excalibur we’ve all been waiting for, but it certainly performs in a similar manner: a few swift motions, proper handling, and a little practice, and out comes the result of a work of art, and like the sword itself, the pen can excrete the raw emotion and power of the human mind; good and evil’s purest forms come to light on both ends of the spectrum. The only difference, however, is whose hand the pen is in.

When George Orwell wrote 1984, he conceived this oppressive, inhumanly totalitarian world. With War of the Worlds, H.G. had a similar mindset; albeit no human had ever met a living, existing Martian, his perceptions of good and evil could be pitted against each other in a juxtaposed world of beauty, mystery, sanctuary, and redemption, and there was no one to tell him otherwise. Realistically, he very well could have ended War of the Worlds by saying “The Martians were actually really nice and everyone lived happily ever after,” but why would he? Where’s the fun in a Science Fiction (fiction is the key word) if there’s an ounce of anticlimax? In this scenario, the pen creates, spoon-feeds, and kills the life of the story. Consequently, the author does, too. Personally, my literary influences revolve around macabre themes; so theoretically, my own creative writing will reflect that, which in comparison puts me in control of my own pen – my own sword. Each sword is different, as it pertains to each person; some ‘swords’ alter their respective universes for the better, some for the worse – some times, neither at all. My point is: the sword and the author’s intentions on how to use the sword are the primary, and crucial factors to how a story is born, how it lives, how it dies, and most importantly, how the reader remembers it. So next time you sit down with your sword, and your infinitely running amounts of papyrus (in layman talk, that’s Microsoft Word!), think, in the long scheme of things, what kind of cut or gash your sword will make in your audiences’ mind. Good or bad, you want it to be remembered for many moments after. King Arthur didn’t make a few dents in history by swinging Excalibur with a few hearty threats. He acted upon his intentions, and you should too. Each author, their own king, each pen their sword, and each document, their Round Table. Choose your knights carefully, or they may leave your kingdom in the ashes of yesteryear.

Shameless plug of mimicked text excerpt below:

“…it is chaos, and to this chaos the author says “go!” allowing the world to flicker and fuse.” (Nabokov 2)

Rhetorical Analysis of the Cheddar Samurai

For those who don't know what I'm referring to when I mention the Cheddar Samurai, check this out. Today, I'll be doing a 2 paragraph rhetorical analysis of the 2010 Doritos commercial known for its [coined phrase] Cheddar Samurai, so I'll get right to it.


The main point of this (and any) commercial, really, is for the marketing company - which in this case is the Doritos company - to advertise their product in a way that incites a "Need/Want" psyche in the viewer, who more than often, is the average consumer. But because viewers of any given commercial can be of almost any age, the target group is specified towards both those who are able to understand the humor in the commercial (hence excluding younger children) and those who are able to purchase it, narrowing it down (for a lack of better phrasing) to teenagers and adults. The commercial is set in a gym, which again, can connect to a wide amount of adults and teens, adding a sense of sentimentality, although subtle. At the time of this commercial's airing, the XLIV Superbowl was underway. As the most viewed sports event in America, a society bustling with athletic activity, Doritos aimed to air this commercial when it had an immaculately large number of viewers, widely increasing the probability of more customers; and for many companies that paid an extra fee per second during the superbowl, this commercial can, in itself, be considered a commercial success. As I've said before, the commercial takes place in a gym. In the commercial, two friends discuss over a bag of Doritos Friend #1 stole from Friend #3's locker. Friend #2 (sorry for the confusion.), hysterically reluctant, demands Friend #1 put the Doritos back before Friend #3 discovers. When asked why, it is stated that Friend #3 "loves Doritos," and through the use of comedic humor, Friend #2 is struck down, a Dorito lodged in his neck. Friend #1 looks over to see Friend #3, the original owner of the Doritos bag, donning a full bodysuit made out of Doritos, swinging a flail which, too, is made out of Doritos, screaming barbarically, and then the commercial ends, bringing up the company's logo. This abrupt shot of the screaming friend and the overdramatized acting and dialogue all add up to create a vision in the commercial that "everybody wants this product," or "this product is so great, look how much these people are fighting over it."

Personally, I think whoever 'created' this commercial pulled it off successfully, because each time I watch it,  I laugh and suddenly crave Doritos at the same time. Their exaggeration of the Want-or-Need-now mentality brings a whole new perspective of lively characters into this elaborate yet incredibly simplistic mesh of hunger, humor, love and loss. The creative uses of the product (Dorito shuriken, Dorito flail, Dorito armor) to promote that same product is something I don't see often, let alone at all anymore. Whoever they are, the director, I'm really hoping they were paid in more than just a bag of Doritos.

A Crucial Quality of Exceptional Writing

Long before Genghis Khan, before King Arthur, before Martin Luther, there was writing. Before wheels, gears, or electricity, there were stories. From basic scriptures and monotheistic symbols, to novels and volumes of regurgitated knowledge, humanity has come to embrace reading and storytelling as a second language – the key to knowledge.

Aesop, who used his fables of altruistic animals and shockingly concise scenarios to clarify and metaphorically reciprocate human morals and selflessness, was notorious for his oral stories from his days as a slave in Samos, Greece. But it was not his life that engraved his name in history’s books; it was his stories. For thousands of centuries, his stories had passed through word of mouth to paper, which can now be found in many libraries and other literary structures. Yet how does this relate to writing, the act of tangible letters and symbols? Although he wasn't able to place his stories on paper, his vocal imagery can be considered a form of writing, as it was a story, created in his mind, to enthrall a user in wisdom and knowledge. His stories alone are the reason he is remembered today.

Obviously, not many writers today will be remembered for as long as Aesop has, if any. So what, exactly, makes a writer so ‘good’, that they prolong their existence by thousands of years? Take a look at an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The Duc de L’Omelette, in which a royal Duke denies the Devil his presence in Hell:

“You have no intention of putting such – such – barbarous threats into execution.”

“No what?” said his majesty [The Devil] – “come, sir, strip!”

“Strip, indeed!—very pretty i’ faith!—no, sir, I shall not strip. Who are you, pay, that I, Duc De L’Omelette, Price de Foie-Gras, just come of age, author of the Mazurkiad, and Member of the Academy, should divest myself at your bidding of the sweetest pantaloons ever made by Bourdon, the daintiest robe-de-chambre ever put together by Rombê­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­rt – to say nothing of the taking my hair out of paper – not to mention the trouble I should have in drawing off my gloves?” (120)

What Poe has just described – a man, a mortal, with the ego large enough to deny the Devil himself of puppetry – has obviously never happened before, and can be identified as blatant fiction. This, however, doesn't take away from its intrigue. Many people read stories that they can connect to (or maybe ones they can’t). But sometimes, a good book about humans doing the extraordinary, the supernatural, the extreme – things the reader nor the author would never even dare to act upon – is one that pulls us in and inadvertently forces us to continue reading. And isn’t the point of a good book (and possibly, an even better author) to capture us in the moment of its occurrences, while attempting to simultaneously distract us from the reality of life flowing constantly around us? This near-poetical, subconscious manipulation is truly what I believe to be one of, if not the sole quality that determines the fine line between good writing, and exceptional history.

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