Author Archives: Danielle Minch
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Contact Lenses Short Film
Brian posted a little about our video below. The link follows:
Digital Essay Idea
I plan to use the poem, “Contact Lenses” by Audre Lorde. Though it is a short piece, I believe there are many interpretations that, yes, can fill up seven pages each.
I want to make a short film that is constantly switching in and out of focus. My friend will film for me, using a sophisticated Nikon DSLR. I’d like to either turn the poem into a song or have it spoken over an eery track playing throughout the film. I’d like for the protagonist to be wearing thick framed glasses. The blurs will show time passing and the clarity, experience. In the end, the character’s glasses will fall off and be stepped on. The character will actually be able to see clearer now. I have many details worked out but I still need to specify the main point and have it match my group mates’ interpretations as well.
I’m really excited about this digital essay. I have a lot of ideas and I hope at least half of them can become reality.
Response Paper 4 – Option 1
“I like it when there is some feeling of threat or sense of menace in short stories. I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it’s good for the circulation. There has to be tension, a sense that something is imminent, that certain things are in relentless motion, or else, most often, there simply won’t be a story. What creates tension in a piece of fiction is partly the way the concrete words are linked together to make up the visible action of the story. But it’s also the things that are left out, that are implied, the landscape just under the smooth (but sometimes broken and unsettled) surface of things.”
This quote, taken from Raymond Carver’s “Principles of a Story,” perfectly describes what he does in his short story, “Cathedral.” As I read “Cathedral,” I automatically assumed that this blind man is somebody the narrator’s wife had romantic relations with in the past. The narrator is clearly jealous of his existence and especially of the fact that he is going to stay in his home. We learn that the blind man’s wife just died which only makes us as the readers believe that something of an affair will occur when he stays over. This “tension” sticks with me until just before the end of the story.
Later we get to know the blind man and see that he really is something. He teaches the narrator how to see without actually seeing, as he does, without even trying to do so. He tells him to close his eyes as he draws a cathedral and the narrator ends up not even wanting to open his eyes to see what he drew. He felt like he was nowhere even though he knew he was in his own home. He was lost in his mind, in the world he created in his head without the help of his eyes.
Here, the tension dies. I no longer feel compassion for the blind man, for his lack of being able to see nor do I share the jealousy the narrator felt. I feel like the blind man can see more than I can. This was one of the most charming short stories I’ve read and I was essentially sucked in by the “sense of menace” that the introduction discharged.
Group 3 – Repetition
Perfection is just as bad as positive thinking. Positive thinking is like lying to yourself, it’s a scapegoat. It’s pretending everything is okay and using it as an excuse to not make things okay. Sounds a little like perfection, right?
Perfection is the epitome of positive thinking. It’s a universal desire. It’s an excuse to look past imperfections and pretend those flaws are perfect. But if flaws are imperfect, then how is anything or anyone perfect if they are all flawed?
Perfection is positive thinking. It’s pretending those flaws don’t exist, or that they are perfect so that we can feel good about ourselves. Almer tries to make his wife perfect in his eyes despite the positive thinking that everyone else is emitting. He tries to use positive thinking on his wife to persuade her to go through with the removal of the imperfection, regardless of it’s risks to her health.
In the end, how perfect did she become? Is death perfection? If we want to positively think, then yes it is. In Almer’s eyes, perfection was achieved as the imperfection disappeared but positively thinking won’t bring her back to life.
Response Paper 3, Option 2
In order to achieve happiness, one must be a winner. One must achieve the goal that they set forth to complete. “Best In Show” shows just the opposite of this. It is a mockumentary that follows five dog owners as they venture to the Annual Mayflower Dog Show and hope to win the gold and title of best dog in show.
There is one scene, the scene that starts the movie off where the first dog-owning couple are in a therapist’s office discussing the trauma they feel they put forth on their dog. Their dog walked in on them during an intimate moment. The irony in this scene is the way they speak about their dog, as if it is human. I thought they were talking about their child, as did a majority of my classmates. This couple and the others followed love their dogs’ as if they were their own children. This is one aspect that I believe kept them all happy, regardless of the results of the competition: love.
During the actual dog show, there is much stress and tension. All the owners want to win, desperately, hopelessly. They are willing to do anything. It is in this moment where you as the audience feel tension as well, though the humor and charm of the film covers it up well. I felt like I wanted all of them to win, since we got to know each couple so well, but I knew it would end with only one winner. How would the others react? Would they go into a severe depression? Would they suddenly reject the pet they once loved so much? It seemed as though they all want to win so badly that it just couldn’t possibly end well for all of them. This is where I was oh so wrong.
The winning dog is selected: the big, loveable bloodhound, and his owner, with similar attributes, is elated. I expected tears, lots of tears from the others but I got just the opposite of that. They all congratulated one another and went their separate ways. The film goes on to show how their lives all continue. One couple starts their own magazine on lesbian dog owners. They couldn’t have looked happier. The couple that was seen in the therapist’s office gets a new dog, one that actually enjoys watching them in their times of intimacy. This yuppie, once tense as all hell pair now seem to be care-free and in jubilantly high spirits, which they were lacking before. The others also go on to do different things, just as rewarding to each of them. They all seem genuinely happy, regardless of whether they won the gold or not.
Misguided Ghosts
A cover I did of one of my favorite songs. Doing this made me happy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql-GP3S2hmM&feature=channel_video_title
Response Paper 2: Invisible Option
Freud speaks of children’s play as direct satisfaction of impulses. Why then do children play the game of “disappearance and return” which seems to be an anti-impulse? The game literally involves removing something from sight, probably a toy, and then eventually having it reappear. One can look at the bigger picture and see the game as a painful experience, as Freud points out. When a mother leaves a child, it is an utterly painful experience. How is it that a child can relive this experience with the removal of his/her toys and voluntarily do it as well? I believe it is because that child controls the direct satisfaction of the impulse of getting the toy back. If the game involves tying a rope around a toy and hanging it over a ledge thus removing it from sight, the child simply has to pull the rope and the toy reappears. In a sense, the game is creating pain just so that pleasure can be satisfied instantly.
Before reading this excerpt from Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principal, I never even thought about child’s play and the philosophy behind it. After reading Freud’s ideas, I realized that even something that seems as mindless as child’s play is performed for a reason; the reason of pleasure.
In The Ethics of Pleasure by Aristotle, he goes on and on about what pleasure is, how it’s achieved and so on. One of his theories is that pleasure is the end, the conclusion. In other words, everything humans do in life is so that we can achieve pleasure. If it’s working more hours, it’s so that we get more pay so that we can support our family and achieve the “American Dream.” If we play a game like “Disappearance and Return,” it is so that we can satisfy the pleasure of getting our missing toys back instantly. Everything that is done is to avoid pain and achieve pleasure, even a simple children’s game.
