Nothing Elegant

In class last Tuesday we were to pick a Gertrude Steiner poem to analyze.  As soon as I heard the word poem I wanted to scream.  Poems.... I could go on for days and days about how I have never understood them and dislike them, but I won't.  So, I started to read Nothing Elegant:

A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest.

I must say I was pretty mind blown.  What in the world was this lady talking about!?  I started with the title which seemed pretty easy.  The word "elegant" to me means rich and proper, but the word "nothing" in front of it makes it seem like the poem is not about rich things and such.   That is why I was confused.  The poem talked about charms and red roses so why did Steiner title this Nothing Elegant?

I left my analysis at that for the class period but I decided to look further into it for this weeks blog post.  It seemed like everything in the poem was unrelated... It would jump from one thing to another and nothing seemed to flow.  I like things that are orderly and flow so I think this is why it was hard for me to grasp Steiners poem.  I decided to google Gertrude Steiner and try to figure out what it was about.  I figured out that she is really into fashion.  So I applied that to the poem and it started to make a little more sense. 

So basically my interpretation of Nothings Elegant was that no object is singular and everything is never ending, things keep being created and changing.... And maybe that is why the things in her poem seem unrelated. 

Hazel tells LaVerne

In class last week we read a poem called, "Hazel tells LaVerne" to respond for our writing into the day assignment.  I was not really in the mood to go into detail and really tell what I thought about it, so that is what I will do here. 

When I started to read this poem I figured it would be like ever other fairytale.  But as it progressed I realized that this was going to be different.  Hazel has the choice to take the frog with her and love him and kiss him but instead she replies almost rudely to him and says no she will not. 
To me, this was very interesting because in a typical fairytale there is always a happily ever after.  I also figured that since this poem had a frog in it that the girl would end up kissing the frog. 

I looked deeper into this peom because I thought to myself. "There has to be a point and meaning to this poem just like all the others right?"  So when I thought about this I figured out that Hazel was very unlike the stereotypical girl in  fairytale society.  She uses broken English that sounds very hillbillyish.  She turns away from the frog and tells him no, which is different than the typical fairytale that we all are used to. 

One thing that I found interesting was that when I got the piece of paper and looked at it I dreaded reading it.  I dreading reading it because I saw it was a poem.  But... as I was reading the poem became more like a story to me.  It was very easy to read and comprehend. 

Annotated Bibliography

In class on Thursday we were given the assignment that has to do with MLA formatting.  Yeah I have heard the word before and kind of knew what it was, but I didn't know exactly what it was or how to do it.  Our task was to research websites that did MLA formatting and to also look more into what it is.  After we did this we were to describe three sources we did with our ethnography project and describe them. 

So, after I did some research and learned more about MLA, I came up with this:


Interview 1:
Arin: Hey do you have a moment to answer a few questions about this sculpture?
Katie: Yeah sure what would you like to know?
Arin: Okay well what is your first impression of this piece?
Katie: I think it is very interesting actually.  I like how even though it is made out of sticks it still looks cool.  To me this is a very odd representation of the human form.  The way one leg is full and the other is skinnier and tapers off is different.  If you look at it from different angles it looks more interesting and you can see more differences in each side of the body.
Arin: Wow that was very detailed thank you! Okay so another question for you, what do you think the artist was trying to say with the piece of art?
Katie: Well I think this piece seems broken, unfinished and unfulfilled.  I am sure there is some sort of narrative behind it.  But maybe the author was trying to leave it open in places and "unfinished" because that's what our lives are like.  We can leave space to grow each day.
Arin: Thank you so much Katie I really appreciate it!
Katie: No problem.

Dangelo, Katie. Personal Interview. 30 October. 2012

- This person really gave me a lot of what she thought about the sculpture.  She looked at it with an open mind and in a completely different way than I did when I first saw it.  This made me think about all the different literacies and how each person might think of them differently. 

Interview 2:
Arin: Hey Micah can I ask you some questions about this sculpture right here?
Micah: Yeah sure as long as you hurry haha.
Arin: Okay I will.  What do you think of this piece?
Micah: I think it looks really weird and deformed.  It seems dull and in an awkward position.
Arin: Do you think the artist did this for a certain reason?
Micah: Well yeah obviously.  I think he probably wanted to make something out of sticks so he made a man out of it. 
Arin: Okay.. How does this piece make you feel?
Micah: It really isn't that exciting so kind of dull.  Definitely not happy though.
Arin: Thanks so much.

Johnson, Micah. Personal Interview. 30 October. 2012

- As you can see Micah gave me a different interpretation of the sculpture, proving my point that not everyone sees it the same way.  There are so many types of literacies in the world attached to different meanings as well.  There is no right or wrong.  It is open for your own judgement.

Artist unknown, Stick Man, n.d, UNC Charlotte Campus, Charlotte NC.
- Being able to take pictures is a wonderful thing.  You can go back and look at them, bringing back memories maybe.  Pictures can be with you at any time too.  Without having "proof" of something it is hard to tell what someone is talking about.   With this picture here, I hope you have a better understanding of what this sculpture looks like.