The longest sentence I ever wrote on accident

As a BYU student, I am aware of the extensive construction always present on our abundantly blossoming campus, and as someone who has worked various jobs in grounds maintenance, landscaping and construction, I understand that both change and careful upkeep of the existing environment are important, and that the grounds at BYU undergo nearly incessant change in landscape – paving bricks are constantly re-laid to assuage the shifting earth, ground cover is replaced to match seasonal changes in the weather, and many other chores (leaf removal, weeding, laying new mulch, replacing sprinkler heads, etc.) keep hundreds of students busy every day, which creates both jobs for students and a beautiful environment to aid the spiritual and academic success of those at the school.

Trying to write

It's amazing how little one can accomplish when one is not in the mood. One may sit and stare at one's screen, one may attempt to try various creativity-boosting techniques one has been taught by one's teachers when one was in elementary school, one may ask one's friends for topic ideas for one's paper, but if one is not in the mood, there is a good chance one will not overcome one's writing block in any way one is proud of. One may always be able to spend one's time writing a poorly constructed, uninteresting paper or post describing one's inability to press oneself into one's schoolwork, but in the end, one will have to wait until one feels more in one's element to attack one's assignment.

Any ideas on a topic to argue about pop culture? I mean, really...what is there to convince anyone of about pop culture? It's one of those things. No matter what you say about 'should', there will always be an 'is' that's nearly the polar opposite. Even trying to argue people should stop saying should about pop culture is a 'should' about something that will always be an 'is'. Pop culture will always be a horrible and immoral thing (cf. Porter 1934), and people will always cry out for its change while purchasing clothes, magazines and music from the second-newest fad (which now happens to be high culture).

Author's word count: 230

Rhetorical Analysis -- Song: "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie (Gibbard/Harmer)

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself
'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said:
That "love is watching someone die."

So who's gonna watch you die?

For this analysis, the music itself will be the main thing I discuss, though the music video will add another level to the analysis.

The obvious analysis (Emma + Ben, and Dianna 2005) of Death Cab for Cutie's song "What Sarah Said" -- the one also supported by an interview published in Under the Radar magazine -- is that love, at the end of mortality, means that you're there for the person you love when they die. To this aim, the music does well, illustrating the wait of a loved one in poetic detail quite sufficient to the task. A good portion of the audience (Indy music lovers - mostly from the American middle class) has been in a hospital before, and so the pathological description of those in the waiting room is something quite familiar and personal. The feelings described are quite accurate, and all details of the poet's surroundings are very relevant to the emotions Gibbard is trying to portray.

Interestingly, the whole song is really just an introduction for the last two lines, "...'love is watching someone die.'/So who's gonna watch you die?" Gibbard has set forward an explanation of the final statement of the song so there is no convincing left to do by the time he asserts it, and poses his question.

Secondly is the layer added by the music video, a story of two young adults dealing with life through self-destructive paths. As I see it, DCFC is also attempting to discuss the application of this new definition of love to other definitions of death. Love, we find often, is seeing someone near us suffering for whom we can do nothing but watch, and this seems to give even more real and even more immediate power to the words of the song.

Author's word count: 279

A tense person

The last time he'd seen her was two years ago. It was actually two years and three months from today. She'd broken up with him coming on twenty-three months ago, and he was pretty sure there hadn't been a day since then he hadn't thought of her and her curly, brown hair. And now he was looking at her. Twenty-seven months to the day, and no notice she was in town. The last time he'd seen her here was even longer ago, almost three years. Here she was.

I haven't taken my medication for weeks. I think I'm stable, but it looks like maybe I've snapped. This reminds me of that movie I've seen. Beautiful Mind. After two years of daydreams and night dreams, now I'm seeing her without any indication she isn't actually there. Her friend's name is Tanner. Too bad I don't know him. He may be a hallucination too.

Next day you'll call, and she'll pick up after a few tries. Eventually you'll have plans to meet tomorrow in front of the Draper Wienerschnitzel, and you'll have lunch. Too bad you still won't have any real proof of any of the meeting tomorrow.

Next day, photos, text messages, $10 less than the day before.

Author's word count: 204

Rhetorical Analysis -- Visual Art: The Kodak Fiend

"The Kodak Fiend", by John Septimus Sears, on display in the BYU Museum of Art's "American Dreams" exhibit

This piece of art is from near the turn of the 20th Century, spawning probably from scandals involving George Eastman's Kodak Brownie, a very compact (for its time) camera that resulted in a string of voyeuristic photo shooting, especially at beaches. The phenomenon affected even such well-known figures as the newly elected Theodore Roosevelt, and became so troubling that Kodaks were generally banned from beach resorts, and even the Washington Monument. This event resulted eventually in a comic photo sequence published by Underwood and Underwood, "Kodak fiend", a 1900 film What the Bathing Girls Did to the Kodak Fiend, an entry in Irwin L. Gordon's 1914 biographical dictionary "Who Was Who 5000 B.C. to Date" on George Eastman, and (among many other things) a poem in the Century Magazine in 1894, also entitled "The Kodak Fiend":

Oh, doan' go out, 'Lias, doan' go out,
For de kodak fiend he 's all about;

You know yo' features mighty plain,
An' he haunt de street an' de meader-lane;

He sets in de kyar w'en de kyar goes by,
An' de railroad one, he 's mighty sly;

He doan' care w'eder you clean or not,
An' he 'll take yo' rags right on de spot.

Ef he do it now wid yo' 'lasses face,
I tell you, 'Lias, you 'll be 'n disgrace.

No, doan' go out, 'Lias, doan' go out,
For de kodak fiend he 's all about;

He come down hyar de oder day,
An' he tuk dis shanty w'en I 's away;

An' he drove in front de goats an' geese,
An' de ole lame sheep, wid his thick black fleece;

De hats in de window an' rags he got,
Wid his hoodoo gun, f'om de meader-lot.

Oh, de kodak fiend, he 's sly an' mean,
An' you can't go out near his machine,

Or he 'll take you down wid yo' kinked-up hair,
An' yo' dirty clothes, and yo' feet all bare.

He 's got de meader, de bridge an' stream,
An' de boss's mule an' d' ole ox-team;

An' I doan' now reckon a single spot
Dat he has n't look' for, an' has n't got.

W'en yo' Uncle Mose' rode on de mule,
An' brought de chil'en home f'om school, —

Wid six 'pon de small mule's holler back, —
De kodak fiend went 'long his track,

An' just 's dey reached de ole stone wall,
He sot 'is gun, an' he tuk dem all;

An' I hear he call his hoodooed thing
"De School-Out, Mule-Back Blackberry String."

So I tell you, 'Lias, 't ain't safe any more
For 'spect'ble folks to go out-door;

'Nless dey go in de edge of night,
W'en de sun an' de gun is out o' sight.

The Kodak Brownie was extremely successful, and by the year 1898, Kodak had sold about 1.5 million cameras (Answers.com).

This particular sculpture, cast by John Septimus Sears, captured the popular image of a particular photographer who became internationally known for his streak of contemporary crime. Sears was a comic strip writer, and so this may be looked at as something of a political cartoon.

This statue presents a quick, almost leprechaunish figure, highlighting the speed and convenience of the camera. Most of the draw of the art is obviously along the lines of pathos, although the title "Kodak Fiend" called upon the ethos of the recent scandal and phenomenon. The statue is plenty sufficient, as the simplicity of the statement is the statement itself. Its miniature size reminds the audience of the size of the camera, and the character's elvish proportions give a feeling of "magic" and ease to the camera, which is also a pathological appeal.

Author's word count: 290

Change, described through stream of consciousness

It's so nice to have green around again. Spring has finally come, and looking outside presents something worthwhile to see again. I still miss the evergreens from home, but just having leaves on the trees is such an improvement, I can hardly remember what it was like before. While the outdoors have changed, so have the indoors. I've spent the last few days reorganising my room and listening to all of those books on CD that I had always wanted to read.

Beyond my own room's changes are those of my previous apartment. I went over yesterday to wish a friend a happy birthday, who moved in to the same place I once inhabited. When I had lived there, the walls were covered with many overly "enlightened" adornments -- tie-dyed banners with the symbol ohm at their centers, purple cloth draped over the light fixtures, Picasso's Don Quixote, ferns and classic novels, an Indian-style Buddha head, a rubbing of an Old English inscription one might see on the tombstone of a Gothic monk, a wickerwork chair in the style of some ancient American throne. Now, the walls are plastered with band posters, and in the place of a twisted little tree sits a 10 gallon fish tank. The house smells so strongly of dog that I'm almost tempted to ask if they're keeping one, and then I remember that the house is simply smelly. That hasn't changed since we lived there, though my ability to recognise the unpleasantness has increased.

My friend and I met at the Food and Care Coalition, where we both volunteered as lunch servers. What an interesting place that was. I loved when the kids would come in, because they were always the most entertaining. What I remember best, however, was a man in his mid forties who seemed to feel entitled to getting lunch the moment he walked in. At the time, I disagreed, and thought him quite rude. He was. I wonder, though, that I ever thought any living human being could be anything but entitled to lunch. What a strange world this is where I can feel that because I take a shower every day and attend school, I am more entitled to lunch than the rude smelly guy who sleeps on the steps of a local business. What a strange world it is where one's social respectability has anything to do with one's right to caloric intake.

Author's word count: 404

Rhetorical Analysis -- Advertisement

This argument is quite complex, drawing on pathos, ethos, and logos. The audience is patriotic Americans with an average understanding of the War on Terror, and with an equally average understanding of the conflicts surrounding Israel. The goal of the argument is to get these individuals to give extra support to the nation of Israel and its international policy. There is no specific action the advertisement calls for, but by fostering a positive attitude toward Israel, the ad hopes to increase general support of future actions by the US government to help Israel.

The argument employs pathos ("emotion") first, with a picture of a boy covered with implements of war. The large print reads "He already knows what he wants to be when he grows up." There is a visceral reaction as we see the image, and the next couple sentences identify the perpetrators of this militant point of view: "A[ny] society that targets Israel."

"They target Israel because Israel shares America's values...". This sentence calls upon ethos ("credibility" or "relationship to the audience") for support -- Israel is like America in its values. For the patriotic American, any country with values like those set forth by the founding fathers (most importantly in this ad, freedom) must be a good nation.

Logos, or "logic" is next brought forward; if you support freedom in Israel, you will support freedom around the world. Why? Look to the tag line: "ISRAEL The front line of the free world." In the War on Terror, Israel is geographically the front line, pressed up directly against their opponents.

For the audience, this advertisement is probably reasonably effective. It lacks an immediacy in that the average American who sees this sign has very little control over foreign affairs, and so the support garnered by the ad will probably not press the reader to action. Given the situation, however, the goal is probably more to affect politicians (who have more control) via popular opinion. The ad is not meant to affect foreign policy directly, but will do so on a secondary or tertiary level.
Author's word count: 342

Writer's note
While the argument is probably effective, careful readers may notice questionable logic in the ad's alienation of "A society that targets Israel." The ad suggests that these anti-Israeli societies are somehow against things that are "free", "right", "burgeoning", and "open", that they have "dreams of suicide/homicide and hatred" and that they could not possibly have other reasons for disliking the nation of Israel. It is interesting to look from the other side, and notice that this ad is asking for support of terrorists' censorship and bombing, and thrives on fear and hatred of those who are anti- Israel or America. A political cartoon may illustrate:

The enthymeme "Israel supports the free world, because Israel is in direct opposition with terrorists" is flawed, because there is a flaw in the implicit assumption that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (Heider 1946).