AP English Language and Composition Welcome to AP English Language! I hope you have a wonderful summer and can spend some time reading. Below is your summer reading assignment. There are two separate assignments. Make sure you do both! • All work should be typed using MLA format. • Bring a hard copy with you to class on the first day of school. • Please do not post on Edmodo or send your work via email. • It is your responsibility to procure a hard copy of your work. Part One -­‐ You will read one full book, The Color of Water, by James McBride You may purchase this book, download it to a digital device or check it out from your local library. There will be a quiz on the book during the first week of school. As you read, complete the following assignment. Identify examples of each of the following rhetorical devices. Cite the specific words or phrases. In the case of longer devices (i.e. anecdotes, extended metaphors) you may summarize or paraphrase. Make sure you cite the page number. You should number each device and present them in the order in which I have given them to you. Then explain why the author used that device. Explain what meaning or idea he was adding through using that device. Each of your entries should look like the following example: 14. Simile: "The sixties roared through the house like a tidal wave." (96) The author uses a simile which compares the sixties to a tidal wave to represent how turbulent and potentially destructive the decade was. Here are the rhetorical terms: 1. anaphora 2. anecdote 3. aphorism 4. asyndeton 5. bathos 6. colloquial language 7. euphemism 8. hypothetical statement 9. juxtaposition 10. metaphor 11. metonymy 12. parallelism 13. polysyndeton 14. simile 15. synecdoche 16.tone -­‐five different examples of different tones, for example cite words or phrases that create a cheerful tone, a tense or stressful tone, a hopeful tone, etc. Label these 16 a through 16 e. I suggest you become extremely familiar with all of these devices BEFORE you start reading so that they will stand out to you as you read. There will be a quiz on these rhetorical devices the first week of school. Part Two -­‐ Read each of the following texts which will help you to understand the art of rhetoric -­‐ that is, how we persuade others, through language and visuals, to think or act as we wish they would. After you have read each piece, write a brief response. Your response should include: 1. The number of the piece, the title and the author's name. -­‐ A brief statement of the author's purpose in writing the piece. That is, explain the overall point he/she was making. What did he/she want the reader to think or agree with or understand? -­‐ A brief explanation of how the text is an example of the description that follows its title on the list below. For example, explain how "Super Duper" is using an extended metaphor. After you have completed all the pieces, find three visuals that are in some way persuasive (this applies to almost all advertising) and explain what elements of the visual image are intended to be persuasive. You may print these out from the internet or from magazines, etc. Write your explanation under the visual. We will discuss and do activities with all of these readings throughout the year. Contact me via Edmodo if you have any questions! Rhetorical appeals: ‘How to Teach a Child to Argue’ Rhetorical devices: John F. Kennedy inaugural address, 1961 Barack Obama inaugural address, 2009 ‘Community’ Using language and visual texts:_ _ ‘We Change Our Language Like We Change Our Clothes’ (levels) ‘The Case for Short Words’ (simplicity and clarity) ‘Neither Here Nor There’ (syntax/parallelism) ‘Revenge of the Pork Person’ (hyperbole) ‘Super Duper’ (extended metaphor) ‘iPhone Left in Hot Car for Three Hours’ (irony/satire) Six visual texts Methods of rhetorical development: ‘Remedial Reading’ (narration) ‘The Gramercy Gym’ (description) ‘The Great American Desert’ (example) ‘A Few Words for Motherhood’ (process analysis) ‘Sitters and Squatters’ (comparison and contrast) ‘Here Is New York’ (classification and division) ‘Inside the Interrogation Room’ (analogy) ‘The Meaning of Home’ (definition) ‘Why We Crave Horror Movies’ (cause and effect) 1. How to Teach a Child to Argue by Jay Heinrichs Those of you who don’t have perfect children will find this familiar: Just as I was withdrawing money in a bank lobby, my 5-­‐year-­‐old daughter chose to throw a temper tantrum, screaming and writhing on the floor while a couple of elderly ladies looked on in disgust. (Their children, apparently, had been perfect.) I gave Dorothy a disappointed look and said, “That argument won’t work, sweetheart. It isn’t pathetic enough.” She blinked a couple of times and picked herself up off the floor, pouting but quiet. “What did you say to her?” one of the women asked. I explained that “pathetic” was a term used in rhetoric, the ancient art of argument. I had happened across the subject one rainy day in a library and become instantly obsessed. As a result Dorothy had learned almost from birth that a good persuader doesn’t merely express her own emotions; she manipulates her audience. Me, in other words. Under my tutelage in the years that followed, Dorothy and her younger brother, George, became keenly, even alarmingly, persuasive. “Well, whatever it was,” the woman said, “it certainly worked.” Sure it did. I’ve worked hard at making my kids good at arguing. Absolutely. Why on earth would any parent want that? Because persuasion is powerful. Rhetoric originated in the lawsuits of ancient Greece, when citizens who weren’t good at persuading could lose their houses—or their lives. It was a staple of education until the early 1800s, teaching society’s elite how to debate, make public decisions, and reach consensus. It probably explains how the founding fathers managed to carve a nation out of 13 squabbling colonies. And let’s face it: Our culture has lost the ability to usefully disagree. Most Americans seem to avoid argument. But this has produced passive aggression and groupthink in the office, red and blue states, and families unable to discuss things as simple as what to watch on television. Rhetoric doesn’t turn kids into back-­‐sassers; it makes them think about other points of view. I had long equated arguing with fighting, but in rhetoric they are very different things. An argument is good; a fight is not. Whereas the goal of a fight is to dominate your opponent, in an argument you succeed when you bring your audience over to your side. A dispute over territory in the backseat of a car qualifies as an argument, for example, in the unlikely event that one child attempts to persuade his audience rather than slug it. George, who took longer than Dorothy did to talk, was at first a devotee of what rhetoricians call argument by the stick. After every fight I’d ask him, “Did you get the other kid to agree with you?” For years he considered that a thoroughly stupid question, and maybe it was. But eventually this question made sense to him: In the world of rhetoric, argument by the stick is no argument. It never persuades, it only inspires revenge. To disagree reasonably, a child must learn the three basic tools of argument. I got them straight from Aristotle, hence the Greek labels: logos, ethos, and pathos. Logos is argument by logic. If arguments were children, logos would be the brainy one, the big sister who gets top grades in high school. Forcing my kids to be logical forced them to connect what they wanted with the reasons they gave. “Mary won’t let me play with the car.” “Why should she?” “Because she’s a pig.” “So Mary should give you the car because she’s a pig?” Repeat the kid’s premise (she’s being a pig) with her conclusion (therefore she should let me play with the car), and she has to think logically. Ethos, or argument by character, employs the persuader’s personality, reputation, and ability to look trustworthy. (While logos sweats over its GPA, ethos gets elected class president.) My kids learned early on that a sterling reputation is more than just good; it’s persuasive. In rhetoric, lying isn’t just a foul because it’s wrong, it’s a foul because it’s unpersuasive. A parent is more likely to believe a trustworthy kid and to accept her argument. For example, if both children—the entire list of suspects—deny having eaten the last cookie, ethos becomes important. Me: “One of you took the cookie.” Dorothy: “Have I ever stolen cookies before?” Me: “Good point. George?” Then there’s pathos, argument by emotion. It’s the sibling who gets away with everything by skillfully playing on heartstrings. In rhetorical lingo, Dorothy’s tantrum wasn’t “pathetic” enough, because she was thinking too much about her own feelings and therefore failing to manipulate mine. Pathos happens to be the root word for “sympathy.” When a kid learns to read your emotions and play them like an instrument, you’re raising a good persuader. Dorothy: “Dad, you look tired. Want to sit down?” Me: “Thanks. Where did you have in mind?” Dorothy: “Ben & Jerry’s.” Logos, ethos, and pathos appeal to the brain, gut, and heart of adult and kid alike. While our brain tries to sort the facts, our gut tells us whether we can trust the other person, and our heart makes us want to do something about it. They’re the essence of effective persuasion. Admittedly, a toddler might find it difficult to apply logos, ethos, and pathos and read a playmate’s feelings strategically, but as with every other useful skill, you have to start young. Instead of “Use your words,” I would say, “See if you can talk him into it.” When my children made an honest attempt to persuade me to let them watch television, for instance, I gave in whenever possible: The win felt doubly rewarding to them. They got to watch their show, and they enjoyed having earned it. My kids grew so fond of debate, in fact, that they disputed the TV itself. “Why should I eat candy that talks?” “A doll that goes to the bathroom? I have a brother who does that.” It was as if I’d given them advertising immunization shots. I tried to use all three forms of argument on George when, at the age of seven, he insisted on wearing shorts to school in the middle of winter. First I laid some ethos on him with my stern fatherly character: “You have to wear pants because I am your father and I told you to.” But he just looked at me with tears in his eyes. Next I tried logos: “Pants will keep your legs from chapping,” I said reasonably. “You’ll feel a lot better.” “But I want to wear shorts.” So I resorted to pathos. I pulled up my pant legs and pranced around. “Doh-­‐de-­‐doh, look at me, here I go off to work wearing shorts. Don’t I look stupid?” “Yes,” he said, continuing to pull his shorts on. “So why do you insist on wearing shorts yourself?” “Because I don’t look stupid. And they’re my legs. I don’t mind if they get chapped.” Oh, my. He had done me one better with ethos (I don’t look stupid), logos (They’re my legs—you don’t have standing in this case), and pathos (Stop worrying—I’ll deal with the pain issue). He was also making his first genuine attempt to argue instead of cry. I couldn’t possibly let him lose this one. “All right,” I said. “You can wear shorts in school if your mother and I can clear it with your teacher and the principal. But you have to wear snow pants outside. Deal?” “Deal.” He happily fetched his snow pants, and I called the school. A few weeks later the principal declared George’s birthday Shorts Day, and she even showed up in culottes. It was mid-­‐February. We all had reached a comfortable—rhetorically comfortable, at least—kind of consensus, a belief in our decision by the group or community. Indeed, as my children get older and more persuasive, I find myself losing more arguments than I win. They drive me crazy. They do me proud. 2. President John F. Kennedy inaugural address, 1961 The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans —born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder. To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside. To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge: to convert our good words into good deeds, in a new alliance for progress, to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house. To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run. Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-­‐
destruction. We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course—both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war. So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms, and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah—to “undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free.” And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor—not a new balance of power, but a new world of law—where the strong are just, and the weak secure, and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation,” a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort? In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own. 3. Barack Obama inaugural address, 2009 My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-­‐four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-­‐
reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-­‐out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-­‐given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-­‐hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-­‐takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions, greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions—that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its costs. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do. Now there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public ‘s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched. But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart—not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint. We are the keepers of this legacy; guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We’ll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-­‐earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, "Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth. And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-­‐off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate. Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism —these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -­‐-­‐ a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.” America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. 4. Community: excerpts from a 2011 commencement speech by Erik Paulson, history teacher at Concordia International School, Shanghai We are social creatures, hard-­‐wired by God to seek each other out and bind ourselves to others and to form what Martin Luther King called inescapable networks of mutuality. And humankind is at its absolute best when we harness the power of community in the pursuit of shared interests. But here’s the problem. History is full of examples of the transformative power of communities, church communities and school communities and civic groups and so forth, but it’s also full of cautionary examples of community run amok. Terrorist groups, street gangs, Illinois Nazis, and what have you. So we’ve got communities that are inclusive and nurturing and whose members celebrate each other and lift each other up, and then we have communities that are insular and paranoid and destructive. Obviously, communities have things in common—that’s why we call them communities—
but I want to suggest that the key to community isn’t sameness, but rather that the key to community is diversity, and that good, strong communities are formed not by people who come together because they already share the same views, but by people who come together with different views, and diverse backgrounds, and who learn from each other, and argue, and compromise, and then sit down together to cultivate a common vision and a shared purpose. So you guys are heading off to college in the fall, and you’re going to find yourselves sharing a confined space with a complete stranger. Now, meeting the roommate is an important rite of passage for every college freshman, and it’s job one in becoming part of this new community. To their credit, some colleges have kept it simple. But others have embraced the ethos of the Internet age, which is this idea that more information leads to better choices, and they’ve put together match-­‐making surveys that leave virtually nothing to chance. I saw one of these things a month or so ago, and I was a little freaked out, to be honest. It asked about taste in food, music, politics, religion. But the only possible reason to generate this massive data stream is so that each of you can find someone as much like yourself as humanly possible. That’s the last thing you want. I can’t imagine a more spectacularly bad idea than rooming with someone who’s just like you. I mean, what’s the point of college if not to encounter difference, to learn new things and meet new people. To be honest, I really hope your roommate’s your polar opposite. If you're rich, I hope your roommate’s poor; if you're able-­‐
bodied, I hope she’s in a wheelchair. Because that would be a formative experience. I want you to love your college roommate. But not right away. I want you to grow to love your college roommate. But I first want you to be challenged by him. Or her. Because we forge truly powerful communities—and empowering communities—not by surrounding ourselves by people who look and think and act like we do, but by embracing difference. And learning from it. I mean, this has been the genius of America for hundreds of years. The words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty don’t say, “bring me a whole bunch of white people.” They say “drag over whatever you got, and we’ll figure it out.” We’ll learn from each other, we’ll grow together, it’ll be messy and chaotic and occasionally we’ll fight like cats in a sack but eventually…eventually we’ll forge a community with a shared purpose and a common destiny. E Pluribus Unum. It isn’t sameness and uniformity that form the building blocks of community. It’s diversity. And here at Concordia we celebrate the diversity of our student population not only for its intrinsic beauty but for its instrumental value. In other words, it’s the experience of diversity that transforms us, and it’s the act of swimming in this sea of difference that allows each of us to learn from each other, to understand and empathize, and to find within ourselves humble hearts that can appreciate the beauty and the magic in people completely unlike ourselves. It’s tempting to think that globalization and the information age have given us the ultimate tools for creating community, and that we stand at the dawn of a golden age of community-­‐
building. Today, there are hundreds of millions of websites, there isn’t a fact that can’t be Googled, and anyone, anywhere can be texted or Skyped or “friended” on Facebook. So with all this connectivity, it’s easy to be seduced by a future vision of seven billion friends all joining hands and sailing into the sunset on the HMS Google. But let me fire a warning shot across the bow of the Google, because the relationship between community and connectivity is not as clear to me as it is to some. Part of the problem is this: every on-­‐line community is a gated community, and it’s defined not by who’s moving to Shanghai or who voted Democrat or by any other real-­‐world criteria, but rather it’s defined by who we link in or link out, or by who you or I decide to be-­‐friend or de-­‐friend or un-­‐friend or whatever it is you do on Facebook. Real community doesn’t give us that luxury. In the real world the community changes us. I am a different person than I was three years ago for having been part of this amazing community and for knowing all of you. You have inspired me with your faith and dazzled me with your brilliance and confounded me with your inability to turn in your homework in a timely fashion. And all of us are better for having been molded by a supportive community. But online social networking is different. Instead of being changed by the community, or growing to meet the needs of the community, it is we who define the community to meet our needs. And if we don’t want to encounter any cognitive dissonance, if we don’t want to be challenged, we don’t have to be. I used to think that the proliferation of on-­‐line media was this amazing thing, and that we’d all become more informed, more aware, more nuanced in our thinking. We’d work together, form communities, solve our problems, and all live happily ever after. But what’s happened instead is exactly the opposite. Now, we’ve reached a media saturation point where no one ever needs to be challenged in their views. I don’t care if you are a liberal, a conservative, a crypto-­‐fascist, or anything else, there is now a website somewhere in the virtual universe where people as crazy as you are will tell you that your views are absolutely correct, that there is no need whatsoever to change, or grow, or learn from others or compromise with those whose views are different from your own. That’s not a recipe for building community. And it’s not just that we have a human tendency to seek confirmation of our views. Increasingly, the Internet does the heavy lifting for us. When I buy a book on Amazon, they shelter me from diversity by offering me other books that people just like me are supposed to like. iTunes does the same thing with music. The Wall Street Journal online now offers settings that allow you to tailor your newspaper to fit your personal tastes, and my colleague just showed me a news article about a growing market for on-­‐line, personalized yearbooks, where every individual student decides which of his classmates is worthy of inclusion. Can you imagine? Stalin would have loved it; he could have used that instead of an airbrush. And if eventually we reach the point where our on-­‐line experience is perfectly filtered to pander to all our tastes and preconceptions, then each of us will live at the center of our very own me-­‐centric virtual universe. The result will be a world in which there is still profound diversity—to turn the cliché on its head, every man will be an island, but we’ll lack the shared experiences and common cultural heritage that we need to bring us together in healthy communities. And that’s not a world that any of us wants to live in. So are there lessons in all of this? Let’s look at those big ideas and see if we can’t put together an action plan. First, and most obviously, I strongly encourage you to spend less time online. Real community is about face-­‐to-­‐face interactions, not hiding anonymously behind a computer screen._ _Second, when you use the Internet, harness its power to broaden your horizons, not to narrow them. Read what you know will drive you nuts, seek out people you know you’ll disagree with, ‘friend’ people who aren’t your friends. Tell Amazon you want to know what people who bought this book aren’t also buying. Finally, remember the power of community. As you go off to form new communities—dorm communities, office communities, eventually families of your own—look back on the communities that have loved you and prayed for you and sustained you this far into the journey. Draw strength from them, and inspiration, and let past example guide your future. God bless you all. Good night. 5. We Change Our Language Like We Change Our Clothes from “English Belongs to Everybody” by Robert MacNeil “[It is fascinating] how differently we all speak in different circumstances. We have levels of formality, as in our clothing. “There are very formal occasions, often requiring written English: the job application or the letter to the editor—the dark-­‐suit, serious-­‐tie language, with everything pressed and the lint brushed off. “There is our less formal out-­‐in-­‐the-­‐world language—a more comfortable suit, but still respectable. “There is language for close friends in the evenings, on weekends—blue-­‐jeans-­‐and-­‐sweat-­‐
shirt language, when it’s good to get the tie off. “There is family language, even more relaxed, full of grammatical shortcuts, family slang, echoes of old jokes that have become intimate shorthand—the language of pajamas and uncombed hair. “Finally, there is the language with no clothes on; the talk of couples—murmurs, sighs, grunts—language at its least self-­‐conscious, open, vulnerable, and primitive.’ 6. In the following selection, Lederer sings the praises of small words. Too often we think that someone is measuring the quality of our work by counting the number of long words we use. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lederer reminds us that well-­‐chosen, simple words can be a writer’s best friends—they are functional and pack a powerful punch. The Case for Short Words by Richard Lederer When you speak and write, there is no law that says you have to use big words. Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words— like sun and grass and home—are best of all. A lot of small words, more than you might think, can meet your needs with a strength, grace, and charm that large words do not have. Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big things— night and day, love and hate, war and peace, and life and death. Big words at times seem strange to the eye and the ear and the mind and the heart. Small words are the ones we seem to have known from the time we were born, like the hearth fire that warms the home. Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like the dawn that greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and terse like the dart and sting of a bee. Here is a sound rule: Use small, old words where you can. If a long word says just what you want to say, do not fear to use it. But know that our tongue is rich in crisp, brisk, swift, short words. Make them the spine and the heart of what you speak and write. Short words are like fast friends. They will not let you down. The title of this chapter and the four paragraphs that you have just read are wrought entirely of words of one syllable. In setting myself this task, I did not feel especially cabined, cribbed, or confined. In fact, the structure helped me to focus on the power of the message I was trying to put across. One study shows that twenty words account for twenty-­‐five percent of all spoken English words, and all twenty are monosyllabic. In order of frequency they are: I, you, the, a, to, is, it, that, of, and, in, what, he, this, have, do, she, not, on, and they. Other studies indicate that the fifty most common words in written English are each made of a single syllable. For centuries our finest poets and orators have recognized and employed the power of small words to make a straight point between two minds. A great many of our proverbs punch home their points with pithy monosyllables: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ ‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ Nobody used the short word more skillfully than William Shakespeare, whose dying King Lear laments: And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? ... Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips. Look there, look there! Shakespeare’s contemporaries made the King James Bible a centerpiece of short words—
“And God said. Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.” The descendants of such mighty lines live on in the twentieth century. When asked to explain his policy to Parliament, Winston Churchill responded with these ringing monosyllables: “I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us.” In his ‘Death of the Hired Man’ Robert Frost observes that “Home is the place where, when you go there, / They have to take you in.” And William H. Johnson uses ten two-­‐letter words to explain his secret of success: “If it is to be, / It is up to me.” You don’t have to be a great author, statesman, or philosopher to tap the energy and eloquence of small words. Each winter I ask my ninth graders to write a composition composed entirely of one-­‐syllable words. My students greet my request with moans and groans, but, when they return to class with their essays, most feel that, with the pressure to produce high-­‐sounding polysyllables relieved, they have created powerful and luminous prose: What can you say to a boy who has left home? You can say that he has done wrong, but he does not care. He has left home so that he will not have to deal with what you say. He wants to go as far as he can. He will do what he wants to do. This boy does not want to be forced to go to church, to comb his hair, or to be on time. A good time for this boy does not lie in your reach, for what you have he does not want. He dreams of ripped jeans, shorts with no starch, and old socks. So now this boy is on a bus to a place he dreams of, a place with no rules. This boy now walks a strange street, his long hair blown back by the wind. He wears no coat or tie, just jeans and an old shirt. He hates your world, and he has left it. For a long time we cruised by the coast and at last came to a wide bay past the curve of a hill, at the end of which lay a small town. Our long boat ride at an end, we all stretched and stood up to watch as the boat nosed its way in. The town climbed up the hill that rose from the shore, a space in front of it left bare for the port. Each house was a clean white with sky blue or grey trim; in front of each one was a small yard, edged by a white stone wall strewn with green vines. As the town basked in the heat of noon, not a thing stirred in the streets or by the shore. The sun beat down on the sea, the land, and the back of our necks, so that, in spite of the breeze that made the vines sway, we all wished we could hide from the glare in a cool, white house. But, as there was no one to help dock the boat, we had to stand and wait. At last the head of the crew leaped from the side and strode to a large house on the right. He shoved the door wide, poked his head through the gloom, and roared with a fierce voice. Five or six men came out, and soon the port was loud with the clank of chains and creak of planks as the men caught ropes thrown by the crew, pulled them taut, and tied them to posts. Then they set up a rough plank so we could cross from the deck to the shore. We all made for the large house while the crew watched, glad to be rid of us. You too can tap into the vitality and vigor of compact expression. Take a suggestion from the highway department. At the boundaries of your speech and prose, place a sign that reads ‘Small Words at Work.’ 7. In the opening chapter of his entertaining travel book Neither Here Nor There (1992), journalist Bill Bryson recalls his first visit to Europe as a college student 20 years earlier. In the following paragraph from that chapter, Bryson uses lists and parallelism to convey how ‘smitten’ he was by his first impression of Luxembourg City. from Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson I had brought with me a yellow backpack so enormous than when I went through customs I half expected to be asked, “Anything to declare? Cigarettes? Alcohol? Dead horse?” and spent the day teetering beneath it through the ancient streets of Luxembourg City in a kind of vivid haze—an unfamiliar mixture of excitement and exhaustion and intense optical stimulation. Everything seemed so vivid and acutely focused and new. I felt like someone stepping out of doors for the first time. It was all so different: the language, the money, the cars, the license plates on the cars, the bread, the food, the newspapers, the parks, the people. I had never seen a zebra crossing before, never seen a tram, never seen an unsliced loaf of bread (never even considered it an option), never seen anyone wearing a beret who expected to be taken seriously, never seen people go to a different shop for each item of dinner or provide their own shopping bags, never seen feathered pheasants and unskinned rabbits hanging in a butcher’s window or a pig’s head smiling on a platter, never seen a packet of Gitanes or the Michelin man. And the people—why, they were Luxembourgers. I don’t know why this amazed me so, but it did. I kept thinking: “That man over there, he's a Luxembourger. And so is that girl. They don’t know anything about the New York Yankees, they don’t know the theme tune to the Mickey Mouse Club, they are from another world.” It was just wonderful. 8. Described as “equal parts incisive observer and eighth-­‐grade class clown,” Dave Barry wrote a nationally syndicated column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. “Thanks to my solid academic training,” he once wrote, “today I can write hundreds of words on virtually any topic without possessing a shred of information, which is how I got a good job in journalism.” A master of hyperbole, Barry often insists that he is “not making this up.” As you read the following excerpts from a column composed in the mid-­‐1980s, decide for yourself whether Barry may still be telling the truth even when he is making things up. from “Revenge of the Pork Person” by Dave Barry I have never met a woman, no matter how attractive, who wasn’t convinced, deep down inside, that she was a real woofer. Men tend to be just the opposite. A man can have a belly you could house commercial aircraft in and a grand total of eight greasy strands of hair, which he grows real long and combs across the top of his head so that he looks, when viewed from above, like an egg in the grasp of a giant spider, plus this man can have B.O. to the point where he interferes with radio transmissions, and he will still be convinced that, in terms of attractiveness, he is borderline Don Johnson. But not women. Women who look perfectly fine to other people are always seeing horrific physical flaws in themselves. I have this friend, Janice, who looks very nice and is a highly competent professional with a good job and a fine family, yet every now and then she will get very depressed, and do you want to know why? Because she thinks she has puffy ankles. This worries her much more often than, for example, the arms race. Her image of herself is that when she walks down the street, people whisper: “There she goes! The woman with the puffy ankles!” . . . What women think they should look like, of course, is the models in fashion advertisements. This is pretty comical, because when we talk about fashion models, we are talking about mutated women, the results of cruel genetic experiments performed by fashion designers so lacking in any sense of human decency that they think nothing of putting their initials on your eyeglass lenses. These experiments have resulted in a breed of fashion models who are 8 and sometimes 10 feet tall, yet who weigh no more than an abridged dictionary due to the fact that they have virtually none of the bodily features we normally associate with females such as hips and (let’s come right out and say it) bosoms. The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates. If a normal human woman puts on clothing designed for these unfortunate people, she is quite naturally going to look like Revenge of the Pork Person. 9. A staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1992, Susan Orlean has published several works of nonfiction, including The Orchid (1999), The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup (2002), and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere (2004). The paragraphs that follow have been drawn from one of these travel stories, “Super-­‐Duper,” which originally appeared in The New Yorkerin 1995. Orlean’s writing style has been variously described as “crisp [and] elegant,” “snapshot-­‐vivid,” and “disarming but disciplined.” Here she introduces specific examples to support her thesis that “the real contest at the Super Bowl” is not the game itself but the metaphorical battles leading up to it. from “Super-­‐Duper” by Susan Orlean If football is a metaphor for war, then Super Bowl week is a metaphor for football. Throughout the week, everything had a sort of battlefield urgency and martial precision. Posted at the Media Center: “Following is a press release regarding the Super Bowl Sod. It is from Bermuda Dunes (near Palm Springs), California, not Las Vegas. . . . It is very important for it to be known that the sod is from Palm Springs . . . and not Las Vegas, as has previously been reported.” Over the PA at an outdoor souvenir fair: “Attention, personnel! We need mini-­‐helmets at the autograph booth! Mini-­‐helmets! ASAP!” At the Commissioners’ Party, an enormous gala at the Miami Beach Convention Center, the league owners were penned in a corner apart from the crowd and were guarded by wiry tough guys with walkie-­‐talkies. One tough guy had collared a small, tan man with luminous white hair who was headed into the pen. “Station to command base,” the guard said into his walkie-­‐talkie. “I have a certain individual here asserting he is one of the owners of the Seattle Seahawks. Can you clear me?” He was, and they did. The Super Bowl is billed as the ultimate American sporting event and the ultimate athletic battle: No other television broadcast attracts a larger audience, and the money and effort that people spend to attend it is stupendous. But during my week in Miami, I didn’t feel that it was on the brink of a singular decisive battle: I felt that I was bouncing from one little skirmish to another-­‐-­‐the mini-­‐helmet crisis, the heavy-­‐duty credentials checkpoints at the parties, the elbowing through crowds to get near one of the players, the press briefings about which Charger had a case of the gout and whether the ‘49ers practiced in full pads or just in sweatclothes. Very few Super Bowls ever turn out to be exciting games. This is blamed, variously, on the misalignment in the two football conferences, which means the matchup always has one clearly superior team; on the fact that you can never guarantee that any single game in any sport will be suspenseful (as opposed to a playoff series, which builds momentum); or on the simple fact that nothing, no matter how thrilling, could ever live up to the hype that precedes every Super Bowl. Still, everyone runs around all week in a state of high excitation. There is a real contest at the Super Bowl, but it’s not on the field—it’s a battle for tickets and hotel rooms and invitations and autographs and access and souvenirs, and it requires both an offensive and a defensive strategy. 10. iPhone Left In Hot Car For Three Hours WINNETKA, IL— This normally peaceful suburban town is still reeling following the news Monday that a local resident, whose name is being withheld by police pending a full investigation, left an iPhone unattended for more than three hours in a car parked in the hot sun. “Responding to calls from concerned passersby, who observed the iPhone sitting in a vehicle in the parking lot of the Westfield Shopping Center, police arrived on the scene at approximately 4 p.m. and immediately intervened to save the device,” said Winnetka police chief Douglas Blaine. “Security cameras have shown that the iPhone had been in the car—
with the doors locked and the windows rolled up—since 1 PM. Due to the tragic and highly emotional nature of this case, we cannot say any more at this time.” According to official police records, two officers forcibly broke into the car at 4:07 PM and found the iPhone lying face down on the dashboard. The iPhone at first showed no signs of life, but after a tense few seconds, officers were able to wake it and get it to respond to a series of simple touch commands. Police said that if the iPhone were left in the extreme heat for any longer, it could have died. The iPhone was rushed by ambulance to a nearby Apple facility for careful examination. Miraculously, no damage to its memory, screen, or wireless capabilities was reported. Upper-­‐middle-­‐class suburbanites from all over the North Shore area have reacted to the near-­‐tragedy with an unprecedented outpouring of concern. Hundreds of cards and letters have come streaming in, and local talk radio shows have been flooded with calls demanding that the iPhone’s owner be prosecuted. Many have come forward offering to take the iPhone into their custody, and still more have donated free downloads, ringtones, and MP3s to the victimized object. Although the device was unharmed, Winnetka residents expressed shock and dismay that something like this could occur in their normally materially conscious community. “What kind of a human being is capable of such callous disregard for a precious, precious thing?” said one concerned Winnetka resident, tax lawyer Ben Klein. “Having an iPhone is a 24-­‐hour-­‐a-­‐day responsibility.” “This iPhone was less than a year old,” said Janelle Mankewiecz, another outraged citizen. “If someone is blessed with an iPhone, especially one of the newer models like this one, they should never take their eyes off it for even one second.” “On a hot day, the temperatures inside a parked car can reach 150 degrees in just 40 minutes,” she added, looking up the information on her own iPhone. Witnesses said that when the iPhone’s owner eventually arrived at her car and realized what she had done, she began sobbing hysterically, calling out in vain for her iPhone, and rocking back and forth on the parking lot pavement while repeatedly shouting “No” and “This can’t be happening.” The owner is currently being held by authorities and will likely be charged with criminal neglect. If found guilty, she will be subject to severe punitive action, including fines and possible jail time, and the iPhone will be placed under foster care. The iPhone’s owner issued a statement through her attorney. “My client deeply regrets the incident, and wishes to express a sincere apology to the police, the community, and the fine manufacturers at Apple,” said lawyer Henry Durst, who was retained by the suspect following her arrest. “My client is remorseful and clearly emotionally distraught. This is her first iPhone.” Nonetheless, local government officials remain disturbed by what they are calling “inhuman” treatment of the iPhone. “My husband and I have been trying for months, but so far, we’ve been unable to have an iPhone,” town assemblywoman Janet Nuetreer said. “But if we did, we would understand that there is nothing more important. Every iPhone is a gift from God.” “Sadly, this sort of mistreatment of iPhones is more widespread than people think,” said Dr. Jordan Heimlich, director of Winnetka Community Services, who is currently supervising the iPhone’s care. “People leave their iPhones precariously perched on the edges of counters, they forget to charge them, they even fail to provide them with basic necessities like a decorative carrying case. I’ve even heard cases of iPhones being dropped.” “But I’ve never seen anything like this happen here in Winnetka before,” he added. “It’s sad to see how out of line so many people’s basic priorities are.” Authorities added that it was “just sheer luck” that the toddler who was also left in the car was unconscious at the time, as otherwise he could have potentially damaged the iPhone. 11. “Remedial Reading” from Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez OPEN THE DOORS OF YOUR MIND WITH BOOKS, read the red and white poster over the nun’s desk in early September. It soon was apparent to me that reading was the classroom’s central activity. Each course had its own book. And the information gathered from a book was unquestioned. READ TO LEARN, the sign on the wall advised in December. I privately wondered: What was the connection between reading and learning? Did one learn something only by reading it? Was an idea only an idea if it could be written down? In June, CONSIDER BOOKS YOUR BEST FRIENDS. Friends? Reading was, at best, only a chore. I needed to look up whole paragraphs of words in a dictionary. Lines of type were dizzying, the eye having to move slowly across the page, then down, and across... The sentences of the first books I read were coolly impersonal. Toned hard. What most bothered me, however, was the isolation reading required. To console myself for the loneliness I’d feel when I read, I tried reading in a very soft voice. Until: “Who is doing all that talking to his neighbor?” Shortly after, remedial reading classes were arranged for me with a very old nun. At the end of each school day, for nearly six months, I would meet with her in the tiny room that served as the school’s library but was actually only a storeroom for used textbooks and a vast collection of National Geographics. Everything about our sessions pleased me: the smallness of the room; the noise of the janitor’s broom hitting the edge of the long hallway outside the door; the green of the sun, lighting the wall; and the old woman’s face blurred white with a beard. Most of the time we took turns. I began with my elementary text. Sentences of astonishing simplicity seemed to me lifeless and drab: “The boys ran from the rain... She wanted to sing... The kite rose in the blue.” Then the old nun would read from her favorite books, usually biographies of early American presidents. Playfully she ran through complex sentences, calling the words alive with her voice, making it seem that the author somehow was speaking directly to me. I smiled just to listen to her. I sat there and sensed for the very first time some possibility of fellowship between a reader and a writer, a communication, never intimate like that I heard spoken words at home convey, but one nonetheless personal. 12. Edward Hoagland is especially well known for his nature and travel writing. This passage, however, is drawn from an essay on boxing—a “waning sport,” says Hoagland, and one of the most “poignant ways to earn a living.” Here he describes the old Gramercy Gym on East 14th Street in Manhattan. The Gramercy Gym from “Heart’s Desire,” by Edward Hoagland The Gramercy Gym is two flights up some littered, lightless stairs that look like a mugger’s paradise, though undoubtedly they are the safest stairs in New York. Inside, two dozen bodies are chopping up and down, self-­‐clocked, each fellow cottoned in his dreams. Some are skipping rope, turbaned in towels, wrapped in robes in order to sweat. These are white-­‐
looking figures, whereas the men who are about to spar have on dark headguards that close grimly around the face like an executioner’s hood. There are floor-­‐length mirrors and mattresses for exercising and rubdowns, and two speedbags banging like drums, and three heavy bags swinging even between the rounds with the momentum of more than a decade of punches. The bell is loud, the fighters jerk like eating and walking birds, hissing through their teeth as they punch, their feet sneakering the floor with shuffly sounds. They wear red shoelaces in white shoes, and peanut-­‐colored gloves, or if they’re Irish they’re in green. They are learning to move their feet to the left and right, to move in and out, punching over, then under an opponent’s guard, and other repetitive skills without which a man in the ring becomes a man of straw. The speedbags teach head-­‐punching, the heavy bags teach body work, and one bag pinned to the wall has both a head and a torso diagrammed, complete with numbers, so that the trainer can shout out what punches his fighter should throw. “Bounce, bounce!” the trainers yell. 13. Once described as “America’s prickliest and most outspoken environmentalist,” Edward Abbey wrote about the American Southwest with equal parts bitterness and affection. In more than 20 books of nonfiction and fiction, he passionately conveyed his “surly hatred of progress” and his love of stillness, solitude, and freedom. Abbey described the theme of his book Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West as “the need to make sense of private experience by exploring the connections and contradictions among wildness and wilderness, community and anarchy, between civilization and human freedom.” In this passage from Journey Home, he identifies some of the most unappealing characteristics of desert life through a series of vivid examples. At the end of the chapter, he answers the question that he raises here: “But there was nothing out there. Nothing at all. Nothing but the desert. Nothing but the silent world. That’s why.” “The Great American Desert” from The Journey Home by Edward Abbey Anyway—why go into the desert? Really, why do it? That sun, roaring at you all day long. The fetid, tepid, vapid little water holes slowly evaporating under a scum of grease, full of cannibal beetles, spotted toads, horsehair worms, liver flukes, and down at the bottom, inevitably, the pale cadaver of a ten-­‐inch centipede. Those pink rattlesnakes down in The Canyon, those diamondback monsters thick as a truck driver’s wrist that lurk in shady places along the trail, those unpleasant solpugids and unnecessary Jerusalem crickets that scurry on dirty claws across your face at night. Why? The rain that comes down like lead shot and wrecks the trail, those sudden rockfalls of obscure origin that crash like thunder ten feet behind you in the heart of a dead-­‐still afternoon. The ubiquitous buzzard, so patient—but only so patient. The sullen and hostile Indians, all on welfare. The ragweed, the tumbleweed, the Jimson weed, the snakeweed. The scorpion in your shoe at dawn. The dreary wind that blows all spring, the psychedelic Joshua trees waving their arms at you on moonlight nights. Sand in the soup du jour. Halazone tablets in your canteen. The barren hills that always go up, which is bad, or down, which is worse. Those canyons like catacombs with quicksand lapping at your crotch. Hollow, mummified horses at night, iron-­‐
shod, clattering over the slickrock through your camp. The last tin of tuna, two flat tires, not enough water and a forty-­‐mile trek to Tule Well. An osprey on a cardon cactus, snatching the head off a living fish—always the best part first. The hawk sailing by at 200 feet, a squirming snake in its talons. Salt in the drinking water. Salt, selenium, arsenic, radon, and radium in the water in the gravel in your bones. Water so hard it bends light, drills holes in rock and chokes up your radiator. Why go there? Those places with the hardcase names: Starvation Creek, Poverty Knoll, Hungry Valley, Bitter Springs, Last Chance Canyon, Dungeon Canyon, Whipsaw Flat, Dead Horse Point, Scorpion Flat, Dead Man Draw, Stinking Spring, Camino del Diablo, Jornado del Muerto...Death Valley. Well, then, why indeed go walking into the desert, that grim ground, that bleak and lonesome land where, as Genghis Khan said of India, “the heat is bad and the water makes men sick”? Why the desert, when you could be strolling along the golden beaches of California? Camping by a stream of pure Rocky Mountain spring water in colorful Colorado? Loafing through a laurel slick in the misty hills of North Carolina? Or getting your head mashed in the greasy alley behind the Elysium Bar and Grill in Hoboken, New Jersey? Why the desert, given a world of such splendor and variety? 14. One of America’s foremost essayists and social critics, Wendell Berry is a farmer in northeastern Kentucky and an agrarian writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau and Edward Abbey. In the following excerpt from his essay “A Few Words for Motherhood,” Berry describes the process of assisting at the birth of a calf—an experience that leaves the author “feeling instructed and awed and pleased.” Berry’s style, characterized by straightforward diction, is deceptively simple. from A Few Words for Motherhood by Wendell Berry My wife and son and I find the heifer in a far corner of the field. In maybe two hours of labor she has managed to give birth to one small foot. We know how it has been with her. Time and again she has lain down and heaved at her burden, and got up and turned and smelled the ground. She is a heifer—how does she know that something is supposed to be there? It takes some doing even for the three of us to get her into the barn. Her orders are to be alone, and she does all in her power to obey. But finally we shut the door behind her and get her into a stall. She isn’t wild; once she is confined it isn’t even necessary to tie her. I wash in a bucket of icy water and soap my right hand and forearm. She is quiet now. And so are we humans—worried, and excited, too, for if there is a chance for failure here, there is also a chance for success. I loop a bale string onto the calf’s exposed foot, knot the string short around a stick which my son then holds. I press my hand gently into the birth canal until I find the second foot and then, a little further on, a nose. I loop a string around the second foot, fasten on another stick for a handhold. And then we pull. The heifer stands and pulls against us for a few seconds, then gives up and goes down. We brace ourselves the best we can into our work, pulling as the heifer pushes. Finally the head comes, and then, more easily, the rest. We clear the calf’s nose, help him to breathe, and then, because the heifer has not yet stood up, we lay him on the bedding in front of her. And what always seems to me the miracle of it begins. She has never calved before. If she ever saw another cow calve, she paid little attention. She has, as we humans say, no education and no experience. And yet she recognizes the calf as her own, and knows what to do for it. Some heifers don’t, but most do, as this one does. Even before she gets up, she begins to lick it about the nose and face with loud, vigorous swipes of her tongue. And all the while she utters a kind of moan, meant to comfort, encourage, and reassure—or so I understand it. 15. In Chapter Two ("Commodity and Delight") of Home: A Short History of an Idea (1986), Canadian architect and writer Witold Rybczynski contrasts cultures that have adopted a sitting-­‐up posture with those that favor squatting. “Sitters and Squatters” from Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynski Differences in posture, like differences in eating utensils (knife and fork, chopsticks or fingers, for example), divide the world as profoundly as political boundaries. Regarding posture there are two camps: the sitters-­‐up (the so-­‐called western world) and the squatters (everyone else). Although there is no Iron Curtain separating the two sides, neither feels comfortable in the position of the other. When I eat with oriental friends I soon feel awkward sitting on the floor, my back unsupported, my legs numb. But squatters don't like sitting up either. An Indian household may have a dining room with table and chairs, but when the family relaxes during the hot afternoon, parents and children sit together on the floor. The driver of a three-­‐wheeled motor scooter in Delhi has to sit on a seat, but instead of doing so in a western manner he squats cross-­‐legged, his feet on the bench instead of on the floor (precariously to my eyes, comfortably to his). A Canadian carpenter works standing up, at a bench. My Gujarati friend Vikram, given the choice, prefers to work sitting down, on the floor. 16. In the first paragraph, drawn from the opening of “Here Is New York,” E.B. White approaches the city through a simple pattern of classification. In the next two paragraphs, taken from the end of the essay, White anticipates the terror that would visit the city more than 50 years later. Notice White’s habit of putting key words in the most emphatic spot in a sentence: the very end. from “Here Is New York” by E. B. White (1948) There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.... The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions. All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm. 17. Journalist David Simon has served as a writer and producer on two of the most highly acclaimed programs to appear on American television: Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC, 1993 to 2000) and The Wire (HBO, 2002-­‐2008). Both programs were inspired by Simon’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), a book that chronicles the work of the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department. In the following passage from Homicide, Simon relies on a series of analogies to convey, from the dual perspectives of detective and suspect, what goes on in a police interrogation room. Inside the Interrogation Room from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, by David Simon Homicide detectives in Baltimore like to imagine a small, open window at the top of the long wall in the large interrogation room. More to the point, they like to imagine their suspects imagining a small, open window at the top of the long wall. The open window is the escape hatch, the Out. It is the perfect representation of what every suspect believes when he opens his mouth during interrogation. Every last one envisions himself parrying questions with the right combination of alibi and excuse; every last one sees himself coming up with the right words, then crawling out the window to go home and sleep in his own bed. More often than not, a guilty man is looking for the Out from his first moments in the interrogation room; in that sense, the window is as much the suspect’s fantasy as the detective’s mirage. The effect of the illusion is profound, distorting as it does the natural hostility between hunter and hunted, transforming it until it resembles a relationship more symbiotic than adversarial. That is the lie, and when the roles are perfectly performed, deceit surpasses itself, becoming manipulation on a grand scale and ultimately an act of betrayal. Because what occurs in an interrogation room is indeed little more than a carefully staged drama, a choreographed performance that allows a detective and his suspect to find common ground where none exists. There, in a carefully controlled purgatory, the guilty proclaim their malefactions, though rarely in any form that allows for contrition or resembles an unequivocal admission. In truth, catharsis in the interrogation room occurs for only a few rare suspects, usually those in domestic murders or child abuse cases wherein the leaden mass of genuine remorse can crush anyone who is not hardened to his crime. But the greater share of men and women brought downtown take no interest in absolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly noted that for those responsible, the act of murder “is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or frighten him from his ordinary notice of trifles.” And while West Baltimore is a universe or two from Emerson’s nineteenth-­‐century Massachusetts hamlet, the observation is still useful. Murder often doesn’t unsettle a man. In Baltimore, it usually doesn’t even ruin his day. 18. A highly regarded art critic, novelist, poet, essayist, and screenwriter, John Berger began his career as a painter in London. In this passage from And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos, Berger draws on the writings of Mircea Eliade, a Romanian-­‐born historian of religion, to offer an extended definition of home. “The Meaning of Home” by John Berger The term home (Old Norse Heimer, High German heim, Greek komi, meaning “village”) has, since a long time, been taken over by two kinds of moralists, both dear to those who wield power. The notion of home became the keystone for a code of domestic morality, safeguarding the property (which included the women) of the family. Simultaneously the notion of homeland supplied a first article of faith for patriotism, persuading men to die in wars which often served no other interest except that of a minority of their ruling class. Both usages have hidden the original meaning. Originally home meant the center of the world—not in a geographical, but in an ontological sense. Mircea Eliade has demonstrated how home was the place from which the world could be founded. A home was established, as he says, “at the heart of the real.” In traditional societies, everything that made sense of the world was real; the surrounding chaos existed and was threatening, but it was threatening because it was unreal. Without a home at the center of the real, one was not only shelterless, but also lost in nonbeing, in unreality. Without a home everything was fragmentation. Home was the center of the world because it was the place where a vertical line crossed with a horizontal one. The vertical line was a path leading upwards to the sky and downwards to the underworld. The horizontal line represented the traffic of the world, all the possible roads leading across the earth to other places. Thus, at home, one was nearest to the gods in the sky and to the dead of the underworld. This nearness promised access to both. And at the same time, one was at the starting point and, hopefully, the returning point of all terrestrial journeys. 19. An enormously popular writer of horror fiction for the past 35 years, Stephen King has more recently begun to attract significant critical attention as well. In this excerpt from an article that first appeared in Playboy magazine in 1981, King examines the causes and effects of an experience that points, he says, to the “insanity” inside us all. from “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-­‐row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare. Why? Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster. Which is not to say that a really good horror movie may not surprise a scream out of us at some point, the way we may scream when the roller coaster twists through a complete 360 or plows through a lake at the bottom of the drop. And horror movies, like roller coasters, have always been the special province of the young; by the time one turns 40 or 50, one’s appetite for double twists or 360-­‐degree loops may be considerably depleted. We also go to reestablish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary. Freda Jackson as the horrible melting woman in Die, Monster, Die! confirms for us that no matter how far we may be removed from the beauty of a Robert Redford or a Diana Ross, we are still light-­‐years from true ugliness. And we go to have fun. Ah, but this is where the ground starts to slope away, isn’t it? Because this is a very peculiar sort of fun, indeed. The fun comes from seeing others menaced—sometimes killed. One critic has suggested that if pro football has become the voyeur’s version of combat, then the horror film has become the modern version of the public lynching.