Villanelle

Sun blends in with the sky, streaking colors
through the twilight. Framing the trees , the set-
ting sun, once gone, leaves behind only the night.

The children sleep, the children dream, dreams of
dark passageways, of strange lands where the
sun blends in with the sky, steaking colors

Upon the strange creatures laying about
through, he twilight. Framing the trees, the set
for a new production, a life where

Sun blends with the sky, streaking colors
every where, all day, everyday the melt-
ting sun, once gone, leaves behind only the night.

What do you do when the day is over?
Do you sit and wait for the time when the
sun blends in with the sky, streaking colors
the sun, once gone, leaves behind only night.

Our Cer Modern Exursion

    A few weeks ago, our 9th grade class went on a field trip to the Dali exhibit at the Cer Modern Museum. Until we walked into the exhibit, I was expecting to see Dali's more famous paintings, like the ones with the melting clocks. Instead, I was met with a much more interesting site, the whole exhibit was based on Dante's Inferno. The exhibit was seperated into three sections, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
   For Inferno, they painted the walls a deep red color, on each wall, there was a quote from the play, Inferno by Dante. On the walls, there were sketches and watercolors painted by Dali about the Inferno. They were beautiful. Each of them were different in there own way, but they all resembled each other in the fact that they all made you feel like you were in hell.
    The second section, Pegatorio, had the walls painted in a cream white, and also had quotes from the play written on the walls. This time, there were watercolors made by Dali about the purgatory in Dante's Inderno. These paintings were alos very nice, they were very fresh. I thought that the paintings here were the most interesting.
     The third and last section was Paradiso. The walls were painted in light blue, and like the other three sections had quotes from the play written on the walls. This section was my personal favorite because the painting were so clear and breezy. They were like a breath of fresh air.
     I was never a big fan of Dali until I came to the exhibit. I used to find his paintings very closterphobic and the colors to deep. But the sketches and watercolors I saw in this exhibit were nothing of that sort. Like I said, they were fresh, and cool like breath of fresh air.

This is my visual representation and analysis of the poem,"Sonnet: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" by William Wordsworth. You can watch it here, enjoy!

History is bunk.

            The statement from the book ‘Brave New World’, “History is bunk”, implies that looking back on the past disrupts the present. I do not agree with this statement because, although history can be dark, George Santayana once said those, ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ This can be proven in two ways, through Brave New World, and actual history.

            If one would imagine the world created in the novel Brave New World to actually be a utopia that came after our society, then you would have to owe it to history. If our lives had not been miserable and filled with love and jealousy, than the great Ford would never have anything to break through, nothing to change. Thus by learning from the mistakes of the dictators of the past, Ford created a society where people are always happy. Also, by teaching the people about their history, Ford prevents the pain to be from being repeated. Using history, he has allowed the utopia to be almost never ending. When Mustapha Mond ignorantly states that ‘History is bunk’, he really is forgetting that without history, he would never have such a life.

             ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’ this has been proven so many times that it would take pages and pages to state every example. Man’s biggest vice is his belief that, although what he is going to attempt has failed every time, he will try anyways. Russia, for example, was tried by Napoleon in 1812, and failed. The Russians burnt down Moscow, depriving the French of shelter in the city, and the frenchmen died of frost and hunger. But, this of course means nothing, Napoleon may have failed, but Hitler will conquer. Instead, he falls into the same footsteps as his predecessor, and history repeats itself.

            As one can see, history is not bunk, but a treasure map. If you follow what the others have done, and understand it, then you know what not to do, you have discovered the treasure. As Ford succeeded in doing, and as Hitler failed to notice, history repeats itself. Until you notice it does, you are condemned to continue it for eternity. 

Perfect Freedom

       In the beginning of the novel 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley, there is a paragraph about utopias written in french by a russion religious and political philosopher, Nicholas Bedrieaff.
'La vie marche vers les utopies', he says, life is slowly becoming a utopia . And when it does, will we try to return to a non utopian society? Less perfect, and more free? This is what Nicholas asks, and this is what Aldous implies in his novel. A perfect life, is never perfect. Nor is a good person never bad, or a smart person never stupid. Life is balanced, it's the ying and yang, and anything that ever tries to be just the yang, or just the ying will never succeed. You can never have freedom and perfection in the same equation. Nature always wins, it always manages to balance the world for a few short seconds, until a new person decides to test his luck in the quest for a utopian society.

Bernard, Mustapha Mond and John.

My name is Bernard
Until I tasted sweet fame
I questioned everything around me
Now I've been punished
And sent away, weeping.

My am Mustapha Mond
I know all about the past
I see all the faults in society
I had options
I chose power

My name is John
'Civilized Men' took me away from home
And treated me as a savage
No one listens
None understand

The Severed Garden- The Doors

Wow, I'm sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain
South
Cruel bindings.
The servants have the power
Dog-men and their mean women
Pulling poor blankets over
Our sailors

I'm sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the tv
Tower, I want roses in
My garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
Must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood-meal
For the plant that's plowed.

They are waiting to take us into
The severed garden
Do you know how pale and wanton thrillful
Comes death on a strange hour
Unannounced, unplanned for
Like a scaring over-friendly guest you've
Brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all
And gives us wings
Where we had shoulders
Smooth as raven's
Claws

No more money, no more fancy dress
This other kingdom seems by far the best
Until it's other jaw reveals incest
And loose obedience to a vegetable law.

I will not go
Prefer a feast of friends
To the giant family.

Taylor Ruth Baldwin

 Tumblr houses many creative people, one of which is Taylor-Ruth Baldwin. As Wired explains, she first started posting panels from her diary, and in a few months, she went viral. I really enjoyed her comics, more than anything I love what she tries to say in each of them. If you have any spare time, check her out here, she really is quite funny .

In the text, "What May Happen In The Next Hundred Years (published in 1900)," John Elfreth Watkins Jr. predicts what will happen in the next 100 years.  If you compare it with Aldous Huxleys book Brave New World, you can find many similarities. Like the fact that you will be able to travel from England to any place in the world in less that two days, and that there will be a machine for everything, but none of them are as accurate as the one about how there will be no wild animals, except in menageries. Menageries, are exactly like the place where Savage comes from, "a collection of wild or unusual animals, especially for exhibition*". You can see that Aldous Huxley was greatly influenced by the predictions of the people before him. Both talked about the improvement of machines, but one about how it will lead us to good, and the other about how it will lead us to changing the face of the human race. Two predictions, portraying the same idea, somehow bring us two totally different conclusions. One about a world a step closer to utopia, the other to dystopia.

* www. dictionary . com

Our Identity

 Our homework today was to write about our englihs class today. It started with our teacher talking about the things that people had posted about the day before. He then asked us what we thought made up our identity. Our responses ranged from environment to food, genes to dreams, and many other topics. Later on our teacher  told us to pick three that we think really makes up our identity and put a percentage on how important we think it is. Mine were experiences (30%), environment (20%), health (3%), genes (7%), personality (40%). After this, we were told to pick a geometrical figure that we think best fits our identity. I picked a parallelogram because although they have two parallel side, they also have angles that can always change, they can become a square, or a diamond, or even a flat line. That's pretty much all we did today.

Brave New World

I've just finished reading the book, "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and was struck by how much our society is beginning to resemble theirs. When I had read , "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, I had seen how our lives could turn into theirs in the future, but it did not seem very likely. With so much misery in our world, I would not be surprised if everyone just gave up truth and science just be happy. The book makes sense, engineering the working class to enjoy what they are doing so that they do not complain. Abolishing parenthood because it is too much responsibility, and resbonsibility always leads to sorrow. Engineering men so that they do not age,  raising the children so that they do not love. Lifting religion, because as Mustapha Mond explains, "'You can only be independant of God while you've got youth and prosperity; independance won't take you safely to the end.' Well, we've now got youth and prosperity up to the very end. What follows? Evidently that we can be independant of God." Although now we think of a world like this ridiculous and out there, governments have already begun hiding the truth, it's only a matter of time before they do it in the name of Happiness.