Class Notes on March 9th - "Future of Terror" and "Terror of the Future" by Matthea Harvey

Close Reading of “The Future of Terror/1”

· Alliteration is everywhere, from generalissimo’s glands to navigator’s needle

o Used to provide emphasis, adds to the tempo of the poem

o Seems to make the reader read faster

· Seems to strive towards confusing the reader, providing an aspect of terror

o No plot, jumps all over the place

· Jump the Gun, Fine Kettle of Fish, and Kick the Kidney

o What do these games mean?

o Possibly that people don’t want to think about their hard lives

· “Laws the linguists thought up were particularly lissome”

o Can be changed by politicians to advance their agenda

· “Ask again later”

o Random chance of a magic 8 ball

· “Sight of a schoolbag could send us scrambling”

o Could be a symbol for how people love to make up bomb threats

Class Notes on February 29th - "Just Do It" by Heather Lindsley

ENGL1102 Notes

2/29/2012

Discussion of “Just Do It” by Heather Lindsley

· Topics from the blog

o Duality

§ Likes Tom but hates Tom

§ Hates fries but forced to like them

o Monopolies

§ Prices up, quality down

§ Can choose quantity

§ Health Problem

o Supreme Court/Government

§ Can be manipulated by corporations

o Metaphor/Allegory of current advertising tactics

o Free Will

§ In any world would a mother shoot their child with a dart gun?

§ People can’t be accountable for their actions

· Questions in class

o What is being critiqued?

§ Capitalism?

· Consumer culture

· Corporations don’t care about repercussions, just profit

§ Chemistry? Science in general?

· Manipulated by companies

· Not always objective

· Unregulated

o Is the exaggeration useful or too much?

o Is the humor/silliness effective?

o Who is allowed to be targeted by the advertising?

Group E

Conner,
Good question, I did not think so because I thought CraveTech already had a strong hold on the community. Although the stock may have fallen at the time, it would have been able to easily recover as people continue to choose to use the products anyway.

Group E

I think "Just do it" has to deal with controlling decisions. What is the right thing to do and what is the easy thing to do. When Chad mentioned the part with Alex thinking about fries. Chad knows they are bad and he hates them, yet they are still compelling to him.

Blog Post Group E

I agree with Marsal, this short story definitely warning against the dangers of advertising and businesses were they to get out of control.  I think that makes it especially uncomfortable is being inside Alex's head while she is affected by the drugs.  We feel sympathy for her as she loses out to the chemicals controlling her.  What happens in the end is just about the worse thing that can happen: complete loss of free will.

Also I found your interpretation of the beginning of the story very interesting,  After taking another look at the first part of the story I agree with you, it does seem very similar to an internet world.  Maybe Lindsley is purposefully trying to make her story even more familiar, or maybe she was just trying to open with a really action packed beginning in order to make a good first impression on the reader.

Blog Group E post

Just Do It is in many ways a hyperbole of our everyday lives. We are constantly barraged by advertisements that appeal to our senses. In the story these advertisements are taken a bit further, they cause a strong craving for the item. I thought this new advertising scheme was scary. Forcing someone to lose all self control and give in to a strong craving is a scary idea. It’s one thing to physically force someone to do something, its another to make them do something through a sort of mind control. There are many far reaching implications of this outside of advertisements. This was what the ending was trying to allude to. I think that those consequences are not the focus of the story. 

The story’s focus is on the power of advertisements and corporations. It is meant to be a warning. The large conglomerate corporations, for example “AOL-Time-Warner-Starbucks Lattepalooza Crave”, are a way to caution us of what happens if businesses are allowed to do as they please. These conglomerates are an exaggeration of what is occurring today; Many sectors of business have become dominated by large conglomerate corporations that have a near monopoly in that sector. The supreme court trial was mentioned to show how the government could, in this future, be bullied by corporations to allow something that clearly isn’t ethical. The chemically induced carvings are also an exaggeration of the current times. In the sense that recently advertisements have become more pervasive. In the beginning of the story it seemed like she was physically in the internet in some sense. The woman with the clipboard was like a pop up window; she came out of nowhere and couldn’t be avoided. To brush her off she had to say that she already signed the bill, the equivalent of pressing yes or ok. The snipers were like websites with advertisements; they try to “shoot advertisements” at you.  

Blog Group E Thoughts

I really liked the way that Lindsley uses contrasting images and ideas in this story.  When Alex gets shot with the dart she craves french fries thinking, "I hate those french fries, so golden and crispy on the outside, so moist and fluffy on the inside."  Then later in the story, during the job interview, she has conflicting thoughts once again, laughing at the interviewer's jokes while inside she is infuriated.  This dualality continues as Alex is revealed as a rebel and yet at the same time is dating Tom and feels some attachment towards him.  I think it really adds to the story.