Re Write of First Major Test "Lower East Side"

Our first major test in ENG 088 was in reality a practice exam for our final at the end of the semster. The class had two options for the exam, one of the options was to write about a neighborhood that had changed since you first knew of it. I had an enormous amount of anxiety beforehand, this was precisely the test I failed two years ago. With my major problem in English being my handwriting, having to free write a handwritten essay is rather nerve racking. These same circumstances were enforced for this exam. Surprisingly enough I scored a perfect grade but being the perfectionist I am I re wrote it and the final draft is below, let me know what you think.

The Lower East Side of Manhattan has been a favorite haunt of musicians, poets, squatters, drug addicts and political activists for decades. Its streets have borne witness to the rise of several genres of music and art, and the fall of many lives as well. The LES started as a neighborhood of mostly working class Jews, Italians and other European immigrants. It was known for it’s seedier residents as well, due to the prevalence of missions and flophouses along the Bowery it was referred to as a slum. Nowadays the LES is a mishmash of cultures, ideologies, and beats. When I found and instantly fell in love with the LES, I was about 15 or so and the neighborhood was cheap, rundown and full of life.

Those days were full of Punk and politics, this made the LES a perfect match for me. Fringe leftist groups, handing out flyers and selling their respective causes, were a fixture in the neighborhood. Marxists however don’t make for very good salesmen. That distinction for me would go to the owners of the Mom and Pop record stores which proliferated the LES at the time. There were no major record store chains in the LES back then, this anomaly kept the independent record stores in business. Kids like me (teenagers who were starved for punk) flocked every weekend searching for the latest in punk and hardcore. When I think back on how much money I spent in these stores over those years, I do so without resentment. If those big record stores didn’t want us spending our money in their shops, we didn’t need them.

What made the shopping experience at the Mom and Pop stores so great was the time spent traveling from store to store. The streets were rife with artwork and political statements etched out in stencil or in some other rudimentary medium. My first real political science class was held in the streets of the LES.

Political science and Art weren’t the only classes taught in the LES. There were several other lessons one could learn just by walking its streets. The LES had (and has) its underbelly just like most neighborhoods, it just didn’t (or wouldn’t) hide it as well as most. A typical walk down its streets would reveal the last night’s party favors; bags of various sizes that contained drugs of varying efficacies littered the ground. Most of these bags, just hours earlier, contained Heroin. “Skag” or “Smack”, as it used to be called, started to take hold in the late 60s on through the 70s and never loosened it’s grip on the LES through the subsequent decades. It transcended trends; Heroin in the LES was always in.

Because of the proliferation of drugs and all that goes with it, the rents were relatively cheap. I still hear stories from long time residents about their parents paying $20-40 a week for a small apartment, those stories sound more like fairy tales now. The drug element (and its by products) made parts of the LES downright dangerous, there were parts of the East Village/LES that I would never think of going to anytime of day, let alone at night. It’s a shame really, from what I have heard there was a vibrant Puerto Rican community in this drug ravaged part of the LES. This area, named Loisaida by its majority Puerto Rican residents, played an important role in the history of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. The Loisaida area gave birth to the Nuyorican poets café, which was co-founded by legendary poet and playwright Miguel Piñero. Piñero was a living personification of the LES, a brilliant immigrant artist who was also a drug addict and at one point a petty thief.

I am 31 now and still a regular of the LES, though now my favorite haunts are bars rather than record stores. There are simply more bars to choose from than record stores to go to. Most of the independent record stores have closed due to the mushrooming of big chain record stores popping up everywhere along the borders of the neighborhood. It didn’t hurt that the chain stores, instead of just stocking top 40 albums, now offer music from every genre, from all over the world. This turn of events suits me just fine since my tastes have grown from the Dead Kennedys to Fela Kuti.

In my opinion the most noticeable change in the last few decades have been in its rent and its residents. Today’s denizens of the LES are not the sons and daughters of the Jews, Italians or Puerto Ricans of yesteryear. They are the graduates of New York’s fine universities such as Columbia and NYU. These current inhabitants as of yet don’t have much history in the LES, they would sooner have roots in Colorado than Clinton Street. The median income in the area has skyrockted and with it the rents. Why would a Landlord continue to rent a subsidized apartment to a Latino family when he or she could evict said family, renovate the property and be able to rent or even sell the apartment to the highest bidder. Some would say this effects all in the market for an apartment, from a lower income family to a young professional just out of college saddled with debt. While this is true the benefits of having to rely on public assistance and/or low wage employment pale in comparison to the luxury of having Mommy’s and Daddy’s trust fund to rely on in such a situation.

Everyone is in agreement that the LES has changed and most would say for the better. The reason is unanimous: the reduction of crime. Most people celebrate this decrease in felonious behavior but never think how or why this happened. Some people assume that the drugs are gone but this is simply not the case. The trend downward in crime happened almost at the same time as crack, weed and cheaper drugs (and the residents who could afford them) were on their way out, and cocaine, ecstasy and more expensive drugs (and the residents who could afford them) were on their way in. There is more of an urgency on the NYPD’s (and the country as a whole) part to prosecute drug offenders if they deal in crack cocaine rather than if they deal it’s powdered variant. One can see this fact illustrated in the sentences handed out to crack dealers in comparison to cocaine sellers. So instead of the aggressive policing of the early Guliani years we now have better relations between the police and the community. This means less arrests, less confrontation with police and simply put a better more tranquil neighborhood.

Sure nowadays the LES is safer with a lot of it’s grit gone. Its grit however, was what defined this neighborhood for so many generations. Despite this talk of gentrification the LES is still by far the most exciting neighborhood in the city, a neighborhood whose inhabitants still consist of immigrants, artists, drug addicts, musicians. The difference now is there are a lot more hipsters and yuppies who are just now beginning to write the pages of their history in the Lower East Side. Lets hope that those hipsters don’t erase the past.

Assignment #10 Double Entry Journal Glass Castle

Rex chasing down a pregnant Rose Mary at night in the desert, while his children are in the backseat begging him to stop.

This chapter shows clearly and coherently the poor impulse control the father has. This incident is sparked by a small disagreement which turns into an almost tragic event. Rex doesn’t seem to take into consideration that his wife is heavily pregnant nor the effect this incident will have on his children who are an unwilling but captive audience. This is truly the act of a deranged antisocial individual.


Differing reactions to Erma’s death, from the children’s glee to the father’s and mother’s surprise at their children jubilation.

This vignette shows the reader the generational differences in the Walls family in reference to the respect children should have for their elders. In Rex’s and Rose Mary’s generation children would never act they way their children acted at the news of Erma’s death. Of course the children were justified in having their cheerful reaction; Erma attempted to sexually abuse Brian and was an all around horrible person. Even so Rex and Rose Mary could not accept their children disrespecting their elders. The reason for this, in my opinion, was because this might mean the children were one step closer to losing respect for their parents and being respected by their children was one of the only things the parents had left.


Jeannette’s wish for Rex to stop drinking and the method employed to make him sober.

The author was able to tell that her father was an alcoholic at 10 years of age and to tell him that her birthday wish was for him to stop drinking. This shows either how comfortable she was with her dad, or how bad the alcoholism must have been. The means used are just as amazing. The way it’s described reads like an exorcism, with the dad tied to the bed screaming and writhing in pain, although with no priest. However the author has described her mother as being a “devout” Catholic so it might have been an exorcism, Walls style.

Assignment #9 Double Entry Journal on Short Story "The Circuit" from America Street

Double Entry Journal on “The Circuit” from America Street

“The Circuit” by Francisco Jimenez

“As we drove away, I felt a lump in my throat. I turned around and looked at our little shack for the last time.”

This line made me think of how humans are creatures of habit. We humans get used to just about any situation no matter how adverse. From the hot stench of garbage in the summer that we in NYC are familiar with to the tiny little shack that makes Panchito choke up.

The sprucing up of the new shack in Fresno.

No matter how embarrassing it might be for immigrants to live in sub standard conditions and accept low wages, they always try to maintain some semblance of dignity. Even in a shack with a dirt floor Panchito’s father made sure that shack will be as nice as possible for his family.

The acceptance of Panchito by his teacher Mr. Lema, then Panchito coming home to see his families' belongings being packed once again.

 I like this gritty ending because it showed how vulnerable the family was. What's notable is that this story could easily have been written today as it was written 30 yrs ago.

More grades and more homework.

I got back 3 papers on Thursday and all check pluses! Professor told me I should easily make ENG 101 by next semester which has been the goal ever since I failed the writing test 2 years ago. It's funny that bad handwriting got me into this mess, but I am kinda glad it did. This 088 class is preparing me for the college experience and it is also swelling my ego. After acing this class I will only accept straight A's, even in Math (don't hold your breath)!

In closing I will share a writing excerise that Professor taught us. It's called the double entry journal.What I have discovered is that the journal does help the reader discover what makes good writing so easy to read. They way it works is you draw up a 2 column table with a sentence, chapter or even an idea from a book that you are reading from in one column. In the other column you write your reaction to what you have selected and why you selected it. It sounds simplistic but it helps your brain play in a more analytical role than usual. This should help in authoring your own pieces, hopefully anyways!

The next two assignments are of the double journal variety and since Blogger has some formatting issues with Microsoft Word docs you will not see the 2 aforementioned columns. I will write out the events or chapters from thebook in italics and my reaction to them in normal font.

Assignment #8 Commentary on Glass Castle pg 105 to end

Hey everybody, just finished reading this incredible book which I recommend for all those with a crazy family. Since I know this means everyone I know I hope I have alot of comments to posts about this memoir in the coming weeks.

PS

Still awaiting a grade on a pop quiz we got in class last week on this book. Keep your fingers crossed.



A life with neither parent being a role model is hard enough but it’s a situation a lot of children go through. What really makes this book intriguing however is the parents’ total lack parental instinct. The Zoo incident is a case in point. The Father, Rex, to prove a point to his children puts them in harms way when they visit the cheetah in the Zoo. The writer as a child of course had a ball being licked and petting the cheetah but clearly this was an act of a lunatic. Rex’s lack of fatherly instinct becomes clear when he leaves his children with his sexually abusive mother Erma.

The mother is one in name only. While she sees her children deprived of food she hides under the covers and eats chocolate bars. She is essentially a child hating responsibility and loving chaos. This is perhaps why she stays with her husband after he turns out to be abusive toward her and unable to care for his family. The mother’s decision to move the family to West Virginia to live with her husbands parents after he had tried to stop drinking is a destructive one whose outcome should have been foreseen. Both his parents are hateful abusive alcoholics who make his slide back into alcoholism predictable. All this happens while her children grow up like wild animals fending for themselves right in front of her.

More than any one episode, what must have been devastating for the children is their losing faith in their parents. Children in general expect their parents to put the child’s needs ahead of their own, and to be taken care of. These expectations were never met in the Walls household. Constant deprivation and neglect were the rule not the exception. Most people would think that this qualifies as abuse but the author seems to think that abuse and neglect isn’t the whole story.

When Jeannette writes about her father one can see that, though all the drunkenness and the abuse, she still marvels at his love for nature and animals and his intelligence. Instead of clearly seeing his ruses (doing “research” at bars on the mob so he can take down organized crime) for what they were, half assed excuses, she saw a certain charisma to it. Perhaps she needed to see it in this light, it probably saved her sanity. The mother also seems to her saving grace as well, her artistic abilities. She is constantly painting or reading and writing. Her ability to find the silver lining is legendary especially in West Virginia. During a winter there the children realize that their house is the only one without insulation. When approached by this problem the mother explains that this will make the family closer because now they have to huddle together.

Despite all these horror stories the children end up for the most part ok. I would have thought Maureen’s fate (living with a mental disorder) to be a typical one for the Walls family but ironically the survival skills they learned fending for themselves made them escape West Virginia and one by one arrive almost as refugees in New York City. There seems to have been an evolution in thought from the parent’s generation to the author’s. The parents were all about surviving and coping, their children added escaping and succeeding to that notion. That’s essentially what the book is about learning from an impossible situation then winning against all odds.

Lastly what stands out for me in this book is its point of view. The author writes as though she is Jeannette Walls age 10 or 13 depending on the chapter. This makes the memoir wonderfully descriptive and a very easy read.

Assignment #7 "Work"

Work

First/Worst/Best Jobs

First Job: JP Morgan

My career in wage slavery begins when I was about 16 and still clueless about life. I was attending High School in Brooklyn half heartedly (going to class when I wanted to) but still getting good enough grades, “Good enough grades for what?” I said to myself. What did I want to do with my life? I didn’t have much respect for school at the time, how could I when I was coasting and still doing well? This is the point when I heard about the co-op program at my High School.

It was perfect, in this program you go to school one week then to work the other week, so if you got bored with either work or school one week the next week would be totally different. This program was seemingly made for people with attention deficit disorder, which nowadays all 16 year olds have. The most important part of this program however was the training the school helped give the student in resume building, interviewing skills and your basic office manners. I did so well in these areas that I was selected to go on an interview for JP Morgan. Though most of what I did at JP Morgan was basic data entry, I did acquire many skills with my first foray into the corporate world. I guess one of those skills was living on $6.50 an hour.

Worst Job: SK Hand Tool

There are many attributes that can make a job qualify as being a bad job or even the worst job. Most people, if not all people, have had at least one experience with a job that had one of the following problems: Adverse work environment, unfriendly boss and/or co workers and a long commute. I had the misfortune of having a job that had all the above attributes and then some.

The setting was Chicago in the dead of winter in 1998. I had been floating from job to job and by some perverse force of nature I found an ad for SK hand tool. After I finished the interview with the boss at SK I figured this would be as good a job as any that I could find at the moment and as an added plus my girlfriend at the time worked just down the road and got off at around the same time so I can catch a ride home everyday. Getting to work was a whole other issue.

My day started at about five in the morning with the worst of all sounds, the alarm clock (may God banish the inventor of this wretched device to hell for all eternity). After preparing myself for the wee hours of a Chicagoan winter day, I walked off to the bus stop. There wasn’t a train close by so I had to take part in the game that many people play in Chicagoland during the winter: practice not getting frostbite until the people’s chariot arrived, the bus.

After about an hour of traveling by bus and train I get to SK hand tool. First thing I notice is that all my new co workers are about fifty years old and look like they have worked a combined thousand years in that factory. Yet for some reason they maintain some semblance of happiness as they talk to each other. Perhaps it is because the subject of conversation is how many hookers they are going to get come payday, who knows? Nice guys though, one of them thinks my last name is my first name and calls me Fritz.

When I was first hired I was told to bring a change of clothes and a lock for my locker. The boss said that the work area gets a little oily and dirty so I might want to bring an extra set of clothes. There has never been such an understatement in history. There is not one square inch of surface area in the factory that has not been bathed in oil (this was also the case for the workers there as well). For the 2 months I was there I never got used to the slipping and sliding. The act of going to the restroom or lunchroom was like an Olympic event.

According to my boss my job was pretty easy. He showed me to my workstation which consisted of a machine that punched holes into metal (or fingers if you weren’t fast enough), a giant box of small metal pieces and another box on the opposite side that was empty. I was to grab one of the pieces in the box with my right hand, then adjust this piece in the hole puncher with both hands, then after my hands were clear step on a pedal on the floor that would trigger the machine to punch the metal piece. I was to then dump the finished pieces into the empty box. As he went on at a leisurely pace how my job was to be done, I noticed there was a counter on the machine. When I asked him about this he told me not to worry about the counter for now, he then informed me when I was more comfortable with the machine I could go much faster. Yippie, I thought.

I stepped up to the machine and copied what my boss just did and voila, I had done the same as him! I was ecstatic because I have always been a slow learner at manual labor jobs. I thought, no sweat, I can get used to this, so I went on merrily with my job. I was at it for an hour when a lady went to the box that was once empty and now slowly filling up. I stopped working, curious to the fact that one: there was a woman in the factory and two, what the hell was she doing? She then glanced over to me and informed me that she was quality control and she was checking my work. She came over to me every hour and every hour she just walked away not telling me if I was doing well or not.

As this went on and the counter reached 300 or so I started to feel the wear and tear. My shoulders were already feeling rather tired and it wasn’t even lunchtime, I’ll get used to it I kept telling myself. I never did, how could I ever get used to moving in the same manner hundreds of times a day every day for ten dollars an hour? I started to think of ways to find refuge; I thought the bathroom was the perfect place. Its relative quite was soothing, all those machines clanging all day long was driving me crazy. The only thing bad about the bathroom was that it was almost as cold in there was it was at my workstation, or as a matter of fact in the whole factory. Even with me moving all day long I could not maintain a sweat. If it was thirty degrees outside then it was thirty five inside. When I brought this up to my co workers they laughed and informed me that in the summer it gets so hot inside that management provides the workers with salt tablets so they won’t pass out due to them sweating so much. It was then that I knew I was in hell, it’s as if whoever designed this place wanted to assault every human sense. This should have been my cue to exit, but for some reason unbeknownst to me I kept going.

I started to go to the bathroom every ten minutes or so just to get away. I knew I was going to get a talking to from a supervisor if I kept on but the few minutes in the bathroom was the only thing that kept me going. Mercifully I was fired for going to my place of refuge too much, and initially I was mad, I told them that I could have a health problem that they don’t know about and that I should have medical insurance so I can find out what was wrong with me. Which was true, they should have had a health plan. Maybe I could have gone to a shrink and found out why I stayed there so long.

In the SK hand tool brochure it says they make “Quality American made tools for the American working man” or some gibberish. The only thing it made for me was misery.

Best Job

By far my favorite job was working for the “Nobody beats the Wiz” record store chain. I started working there right after my internship at JP Morgan ended. JP had wanted me back full time but I couldn’t be bothered working on Wall Street at such an early age.

I always have loved music and now I had the chance to acquire some knowledge of music as well. Looking back at my days at the Wiz however I feel grief as well. This was where I met my best friend Dan Stokes who funny enough was my manager when I first met him. Dan died a few years back of cancer at the age of 35 but the few years that I did work with him were eventful.

When we met up at The Wiz we immediately bonded, we liked the same music and had similar politics. As we were helping customers and suggesting that if they like Madonna’s new album they should check out the new Ace of Base (on sale for only $12.98!), we laughed at them and their poor taste in muzak. We would talk about everything from which new Punk bands were still good, to questioning if the hundred dollar Coltrane collection was worth it (it certainly was).

We went on and formed a band and would tell the kids who would come in and buy the new Green Day or Ramones album to check our band out. Not that we sounded like either of those bands but that was the closest the Wiz got to what we sounded like. The store, being in Greenwich Village was also a great place to meet people from all over the world, especially during the warmer months there were tons of tourists around. The German tourists would always buy hundreds of dollars worth of CDs of every genre possible. The French girls would come in and model Parisian summer fashions for us.

From meeting my best friend and forming a band, then promoting that band, to running into a global array of people the Wiz was a great working experience and one I will never forget, even though they paid me eight bucks an hour.

Assignment #6 "What's in a name" rewrite

What's in a name 

It’s great that an everyday thing, such as a name, can tell someone so much about their background and in my case their personality. Names nowadays (in particular the US) have lost a lot of their meaning but in most cultures around the world this is not the case. My name on the other hand does not belong to a particular culture, it is a peculiar mix of East and West. Shoghi is a Persian religious name, in Farsi it translates into “one who longs”. In my formative years the only thing I was longing for was for my classmates to stop making fun of my unselected moniker. Growing up in a mainly Latino neighborhood in Brooklyn and being Latino myself the name calling was incessant. But to be fair, what self-respecting 10 year old wouldn’t make fun of my name? I figured the best thing would be change my given name, but as the years passed me by so did the less mature. Most people I am introduced to now don’t burst out laughing when they hear my response to “What’s your name?”

I would be the first to admit that being Latino and having a Persian first name is rather strange, but having this name with its two radically different backgrounds and influences has also influenced me and who I am to a great degree. My name also has given me many chances to tell a bit about my parents, in particular my mother, to whoever is willing to listen.

My mother Yolanda Azucena Celleri was born in Cuenca, Ecuador of Italian and Spanish lineage. She and her 14 brothers and sisters grew up in a religious Roman Catholic household and they were all raised for the most part to be your typical pious South American Catholics. However that was not to be, some Persian missionaries made sure of that.

My mother and most of her sisters and brothers “converted” to the Baha’i Faith almost forty years ago by those abovementioned missionaries. One of the major figures of this religion was Shoghi Effendi, hence my first name. My mom lobbied my dad long and hard to name me in honor of this Baha’i historical figure. My father finally gave in saying that at least I was being named after a religious man. The Baha’i Faith has influenced my outlook on morality for most of my life. Its main tenets are very liberal which is how many would describe me. These include: the equality between men and woman, the elimination of racism and the “harmony” of religion and science. I still don’t quite understand the latter but I would be the first to admit that the Bahai belief system smacks more of modernity than the Inquisition. At this point of my life I am an atheist and naturally don’t subscribe to any religion, but even so I do admire the aforementioned principles of the Bahai faith.

On to the family name: Fret. This explanation is a bit murkier as you will see. My dad, Carlos Manuel Fret, is (in my estimation) a very typical Puerto Rican in his age group (early 70s). He is very religious (he has been a preacher in the Pentecostal sect for twenty years), loves sports, in particular baseball and boxing, and has a very conservative outlook on life and politics (see above religious affiliation). We never ever see eye to eye on anything expect that Alex Rodriguez is an unbelievably overpaid baseball player. The only thing setting him apart from other Puerto Ricans is his last name, Fret. Upon questioning him about this, all he divulges is that his dad’s family came from an “island in the Mediterranean that used to be owned by the Spanish but isn’t anymore”. Apparently my father isn’t as interested in our family history as much as I am. Thankfully I am a sucker for history and maps and deduced that this can only mean Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon.

Corsica’s flag has always had a soft spot in my heart. The flag for the island nation is a white background with a moors head on it. On this flag the moor is wearing a white bandana on his forehead. The significance of the bandana is in its placement: the fact that it is not being used to cover the moors’ eyes is important. The covering of the eyes by the bandana was a symbol of subjugation whereas the wearing of it on the forehead was and is a sign of defiance, for this reason it’s definitely my favorite flag. The name Fret and its history capture the rebellious non conformist side of me that always roots for the underdog. I have seen myself embracing this side of me more and more as I have grown older, the paradox is that I have never been close to my father’s side of the family. Go figure.

Upon further investigation I found that in the mid 1800s (before the Spanish lost control of the Caribbean and after they lost control of most of South America) the Spanish Royal family had offered thousands of rural Roman Catholic families of non Hispanic descent to move to its colonies with an offer of free land. At the beginning more than 400 families left Corsica for Puerto Rico and luckily I found a list of these families’ names. The closest thing to Fret was Fraticelli and Fratacci. Perhaps there was a second boat with a Freticini on board, who knows. What I do know is that I feel lucky that I am able to somewhat track back my family heritage. Due to colonialism and slavery some of us don’t know where our names or even or families come from. That would be unimaginable for me.

Grade Update

I know you all have been waiting with baited breath thinking "How well did Shoghi do with his papers?"

Well I am proud to say that I have been getting straight check pluses! My Professor told me not to re write a word of my first story "The Machine", he wanted me to concentrate on "What's in a name" and a new piece about my work history. Those will be posted in the next few minutes enjoy!

Assignment #5 Short commentary on "Raymond's Run"

This short story "Raymond's Run" is from a collection of multi culti stories called America Street. Raymond's Run is quite entertaining even though I think it is a bit below College level reading. Our assignment was to write a short commentary on the story and to also pick out 3 words 3 phrases and 3 sentences that we like, these are at the end.

Short Commentary on Raymond’s Run from America Street

Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker a.k.a. “Squeaky” is one hell of a confident young woman. She has every right to be: she is the “fastest thing on two feet” in her neighborhood and makes no qualms about it. The only thing that apparently is holding her back is her brother Raymond.

Raymond is her big brother in name only. He is taken care of (“minded”) by his baby sister “Squeaky”. He seems to be disabled most likely with some kind of learning disability. She brings him everywhere and never lets him slow her down. She has a single mindedness about her training-for the big May Day race that happens in Harlem-that sets her apart from regular children. This race is her chance to show up all the girls in the neighborhood that make fun of her and her “little” brother Raymond, especially Gretchen.

“Squeaky” Parker sure is feisty as she confronts her supposed adversaries head on. She doesn’t see the point of trying to talk through a problem, she hits first and if need be she runs out of there and never gets caught (they don’t call her Mercury for no reason).

My favorite part of the story comes at the end with the big May Day race. The way the writer describes what is going through Squeaky’s head is magnificent (hot and weightless is how she describes the feeling right before the race starts). While running and leaving Gretchen in the dust “Squeaky” notices her brother Raymond running on the other side of the gate, and doing rather well. She wins the race but her happiness is reserved for Raymond and how she can coach him to be as good as a runner as her. She also thinks that Gretchen who came in second, only to her, is good enough to help her coach Raymond as well, “Squeaky” even smiles at her nemesis and acknowledges her accomplishment. Hazel Parker goes from being a self centered driven competitor to being gracious and selfless in victory, a truly uplifting story.

Three Sentences:

1. And the next word out of anybody and I’ll be their mother too.
2. I am not a strawberry
3. I’m on my back looking at the sky, trying to pretend that I’m in the country, but I can’t, because even the grass in the city feels hard as sidewalk, and there’s no pretending you are anywhere but in a “concrete jungle” as my grandfather says.

Three Phrases

1. Ventriloquist dummy routine
2. Hot and weightless
3. Explodes in my blood

Three Words

1. Beanstalk
2. Fairies
3. Holler

"Test me, grade me! I'm ever so smart"

Just got my first paper back and apparently this Professor grades with check marks instead of As Bs or what have you. The highest grade is a check plus and I got a check. This grade was for my second assignment "What's in a name". Professor thought I was a bit long winded with the history of my name. I thought that the point of the assignment was to research your name and family history and write about it, oh well. Still no grade yet on my first assignment, "The Machine" which is what I was really interested in getting back. I did have the class tutor look at it and she said it was great but she wasn't clear on the moral of the story. The story is about the ceaseless battle between rich and poor and how their interests are similar and so far apart at once, I think it's natural that the moral was painted in more of a shade of gray than in black and white.

Assignment #4 "Educated one V Uneducated one"

Please note the work below is a rough draft. As a matter of fact the Professor didn't even ask for it as of yet., I wrote this back on the 13th. I am posting it anyhow just so I can track my progress as I go through this class.

“The Educated one V the Uneducated one”

Bob and John grew up in the same city, but it might as well been different planets. Bob’s parents had all the time in the world to look after him and got him reading at an early age. Bob’s mom at one point learned that reading to your children young positively affects their learning. Bob’s dad, a big wig at the office, had enough vacation time left over so he could spend it with his wife and newborn son. They started a college fund and a bright new future for Bob.

John was just a couple of miles down the road. His mom and dad didn’t read much about new ways to bring children up smarter, they were just glad that John was born. There were many health complications and John was born early. With his dad always working, John’s dad was like a stranger in the house. When he wasn’t at work he was at the bar trying to get over the stress of a bad job and a new son.

With Bob’s parents in his corner he was defeating anything life put in his path. John just tried to avoid his parents and the problems life gave him. It’s still a wonder to his parents how John got into a specialized High School, but it wasn’t a surprise to John. Sure John got into trouble but he always knew he was smart, he just didn’t care. He would get average grades during the year so he wouldn’t get a letter sent home to his parents, which annoyed his teachers to no end because they knew how smart he was. Then when the finals came John aced them, not because of the sense of satisfaction one would get from doing well, but just to anger his teachers! The student sitting next to him in this specialized High School hated John because of these antics. This student was Bob.

Bob was always a great student and was never satisfied with just an A. He would do extra credit, stay behind after class was done to discuss with the teacher how he could be a better student and yes how the teacher could be a better instructor. But they also talked about how students like John could do almost as well overall and still not care. Bob decided he should speak to John, he figured he might be able to get through to him better than a teacher would.

John did not quite understand why this “nerd”, this “teachers pet” that went by the name of Bob was trying to get his attention. Perhaps he needed change for a ten dollar bill or something. For John there was no other reason why Bob would want to speak with him. John had seen the looks he got from the teachers and Bob and he knew he wasn’t liked. “Hey John can I speak to for a bit?” spit out Bob in short breaths, he had been running after him, at the same time John wished he had run from this conversation. “What!” John said curtly. “What’s up with you John? You are always getting great grades, though not as high as mine, but you are even being considered for honors society?”. “What’s you point?” said John, getting angry that he was wasting his brain power on trying to find out what Bob’s ulterior motive was. “You don’t like me do you John?” “Hell no” said John “Why do you ask?” “Well then why are you doing so well on these tests, do you really want to make the honors society, not your type of crowd right?” “Just to piss you guys off, maybe I will join honors society!” “Great maybe we will be friends” Bob retorted and then continued: “Just think of all that time we will spend together, perhaps we will work on a project for the school newspaper together”. Bob’s insides turned when he said that, to think that he would be paired up with John, with someone who didn’t care about how others thought of him, who didn’t care about his career, his future! This would dent Bob’s faith in the educational system. John thought about the same thing but as in a mirror “I won’t be caught dead with creeps like Bob who just want a diploma so they can get a dead end 9 to 5 job that will give him stock options” thought John. “Listen Bob, you can have your honors thing a ma jig and all that comes with it I don’t care, peace”

John eventually left school. It was easier then having to deal with Bob and like minded folk. Maybe John thought that he would be a burden to all those bright young minds, the future of this country, or maybe he did not want to be caught dead breathing the same air as the geeks in the honors society. Bob was satisfied that he might of helped rid the school of some malcontent, some loser who was going to end up driving the cab he might hail one day or prepare the food he might order.

John was satisfied as well: he got a job at a restaurant, one that Bob and his friends frequented. He just couldn’t wait until Bob and maybe a teacher came in for some dinner. He dreamed about preparing that order.

Assignment #3 The Glass Castle Pt 1

For our newest assignment our Professor has tasked us with commenting on the Memoir The Glass Castle. Not sure how much you will enjoy this if you haven't read it but I am sure you can google the book and get a general idea.

Ciao

Commentary on Glass Castle pt 1
Pages 1-41

This memoir starts out with a drastic contradiction with no explanation which really catches the reader’s attention. The writer, Jeannette Wells, (who lives on Park Avenue) sees her mother rifling thru garbage. Jeannette witnesses this while sitting in a cab that is taking her to a trendy party. She hadn’t seen her mother in a while but even so she could not get out of the cab to say hello or to offer any help. She would of felt horrible if one of her friends had seen her talking to this homeless person who to top it all off is her mother.

In the first chapter she delves (though not very deeply) into her own embarrassment of her mother’s living situation, and as the author will display, her mother's delusional nature. It seems that this contrast will be a central theme in this memoir. In addition to the cab incident, there is story about how Jeannette contacts her mother and tries to offer her some money so she can get off her feet. The mother, homeless in NYC, responds by asking for her daughter to pay for hair removal treatments.

In the second chapter the author uses literary shock and awe. She tells the story of her earliest memory, being burned while cooking. She cleverly goes into detail about boiling hot dogs (a food children often eat) and how she tries to feed it to the family dog (showing innocence and/or playfulness of youth) and how the mother is painting (displaying the creative aloofness of the mother) to build an image for the reader. At this moment the audience has visualized an endearing family moment forgetting for a instant that this is a 3 year old girl cooking while at the same time her mother is in the other room knowingly letting this happen!

Right after the hot dog episode the author starts favorably comparing her experience being in the burn unit of a hospital to that of her home life. She describes as she enjoys her own room and TV and the peace and quiet of the hospital. We start to see how her home life must have been like. As you read on however, you find out there wasn’t much a home life at all. The writer’s tales of going from town to town (Nevada, Arizona, California and back again) and of her father (Rex Wells) trying to build a device called the Prospector (to look for gold) are beyond belief. Thru her descriptions of her father the reader starts to grasp that he is a genius who at the same time is a nomad, gypsy and a bohemian.

There are also stories about his excessive drinking and gambling. The drinking problems are not really written about in detail as of yet, but the gambling is. The story about the family going to Las Vegas is quite amusing. The father always the risk taker comes up with a scheme to cheat the casinos. This enables him to do more than his share of winning and at the same time makes him suspicious. He is found out and his family is forced once again to “pull up stakes”.

The writer makes a point of sharing with the reader many instances of the father sharing stories of his personal accomplishments, (making the daughter feel more confident in him)and also telling stories to give her self confidence to survive in a harsh world (the story about “demon” -the snake under her bed- is a good example of both). This seems to paint for the reader a picture of a father who knows that his choice of lifestyle is unorthodox and that his children have to be prepared for the challenges it brings.

There isn’t much written about the mother so far. We are told how the mother and father met and that she was in the USO but not much else. There is however a snapshot into her persona. As they are driving away from another town (“pulling up stakes”) the mother makes the family stop the car because she sees a Joshua tree she wants to paint. She then decides the family should live there, in a town hundreds of miles away from a major city but “smack dab in the middle of nowhere”. The mother’s temporary happiness seems to be the lone deciding factor in her decision making process, let’s hope the writer goes into this more.

Questions so far:

1. Is the mother really so aloof? Does she not care about her children’s and her insecure lifestyle? Does she secretly want a more stable life?
2. Do the parents share a mental disorder at this early stage? It doesn’t seem like they were brought up as nomads but they certainly don’t seem certifiable either, at this point.
3. If the mother and father loved to live so free and travel so much why did they have children?
4. Are the parents religious at all or just “extremist hippies”?

What I am starting to realize is the mother and father are painting this picture of family life being an adventure strictly for the children’s benefit. This still does not explain the mother’s aloofness, let’s hope the author goes into this more.

Assignment #2 What's in a name

What's in a name?

It’s great that an everyday thing such as a name can tell such a rich history. Names nowadays have lost a lot of their meaning but in certain cultures this is not the case. My name however does not belong to a particular culture it is a peculiar mix of East and West. Shoghi is a Persian name, in Farsi it translates into “one who longs”. In my formative years the only thing I was longing for was for my classmates to stop making fun of my unselected moniker. Growing up in a mainly Latino neighborhood in Brooklyn and being Latino myself the name calling was incessant. But to be fair, what self-respecting 10 year old wouldn’t make fun of my name? I figured the best thing would be change my given name, but as the years passed me by so did the less mature. Most people I am introduced to now don’t burst out laughing when they hear my response to “What’s your name?”

I would be the first to admit that being Latino and having a Persian first name is rather strange. This odd fact however has given me many a chance to tell a bit about my parents, in particular my mother, to whoever is willing to listen. My mother Yolanda Azucena Celleri was born in Cuenca, Ecuador of Italian and Spanish lineage. She and her 14 brothers and sisters grew up in a religious Roman Catholic household and they were all raised for the most part to be your typical pious South American Catholics. However that was not to be, some Persian missionaries made sure of that.

My mother and most of her sisters and brothers were “converted” to the Baha’i Faith almost 40 years ago (the Bahai’s would rather use the phrase “declared their faith” instead of “converted” but that is neither here nor there) by those abovementioned missionaries. One of the major figures of this religion was Shoghi Effendi hence my first name. He was assigned to be the administrator (or “guardian” as he is called by his adherents) of The Bahai faith after the son (Abdul Baha) of the prophet (Baha ullah) died early last century. This religion started in the mid 1800s in Persia (modern day Iran) after the enlightenment and the start of the industrial revolution. The Bahai Faith has a host of beliefs that are more 21^st century Western Europe than 19^th century Iran. These include: the equality between men and woman, the elimination of racism and the “harmony” of religion and science. I still don’t quite understand the latter but I would be the first to admit that the Bahai belief system smacks more of modernity than the Inquisition. I do believe however that this has more to do with the date of its inception than it being better than any other dogma.

At this point of my life I am an atheist and naturally don’t subscribe to any religion, but I do admire the aforementioned principles of the Bahai faith. I have noticed that the Faith (or more accurately the principles listed above among others) has shaped my outlook on morality and life, most notably my strong anti-racist and anti-war stance.

On to the family name: Fret. This explanation is a bit murkier as you will see. My dad is (in my estimation) a very typical Puerto Rican in his age group (early 70s). He is very religious (he has been a preacher in the Pentecostal sect for 20 years), loves sports-in particular baseball and boxing, and has a very conservative outlook on life and politics (see above religious affiliation). We never ever see eye to eye on anything expect that Alex Rodriguez is an unbelievably overpaid baseball player. The only thing setting him apart from other Puerto Ricans is his last name, Fret. Upon questioning him about this, all he divulges is that his dad’s family came from an “island in the Mediterranean that used to be owned by the Spanish but isn’t anymore”. Apparently my father isn’t as interested in our family history as much as I am. Thankfully I am a sucker for history and maps and deduced that this can only mean Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon.

Corsica has been ruled by the Romans, the Vandals, and the Moors. As a matter of fact the flag for the island nation is a white background with a moors head on it, on this flag the moor is wearing a white bandana on his forehead. The significance of the bandana is in its placement: the fact that it is not being used to cover the moors’ eyes is important. The covering of the eyes by the bandana was a symbol of subjugation whereas the wearing of it on the forehead was and is a sign of defiance, for this reason it’s definitely my favorite flag.

Upon further investigation I found that in the mid 1800s (before the Spanish lost control of the Caribbean and after they lost control of most of South America) the Spanish Royal family had offered thousands of rural Roman Catholic families of non Hispanic descent to move to its colonies with an offer of free land. This was because Spain had feared that it was on the verge of losing these colonies as it had lost South America to the great Bolivarian wave of independence. The Royals thought that moving ardent Catholic farming families to very arable land could help keep their remaining colonies in the fold. So because of this thousands of poor pious families made the move to warmer climes (many came from Corsica but others came from Ireland). Once they got to the islands (such as Puerto Rico or Cuba) they got free land. The only catch was that they were to be Spanish subjects and swear loyalty to the Spanish Royal family, and of course the Pope. This wasn’t much of an issue at the time: the Corsican families were fleeing a “wine famine” and the Irish a “potato famine”. They were very lucky to move to say the least.

At the beginning more than 400 families left Corsica for Puerto Rico and luckily I found a list of these families’ names. The closest thing to Fret was Fraticelli and Fratacci. Perhaps there was a second boat with a Freticini on board, who knows. What I do know is that I feel lucky that I am able to somewhat track back my family heritage. Due to colonialism and slavery some of us don’t know where our names or even or families come from. That would be unimaginable for me.

Assignment #1 The Machine

The following story is my first piece written for ENG 088 at BMCC. It is also the first time I have subjected myself to being graded in more than a decade. I should get a grade on this Thursday. I will keep you all informed. Thanks!

The characters in the story below have no names per se. They are called He and She, these two characters represent millions of people all over the world. Infer their identity at your own risk.

The Machine

He had it all. The world was his stage, playground and toilet. All was for him and people that were not of his ilk were to serve him. It’s not his fault; the machine was already in place when he gracefully popped out of his mother’s golden upper crust womb. It’s not his fault that his place was to consume the earth’s treasures and produce its waste.

She had nothing, nothing but her life and the person who accidentally gave her breath. The world, if she were lucky, would be her kitchen to clean, garbage dump to pick food out of and a stage for her misery. It’s not her fault that the world says she and her ilk are lazy and deserve their fate. It’s not her fault that her place was to produce the world’s treasures and consume its waste. The machine was already in place when she screamed her way out of the wound in her mother’s belly.

He did really have it all. How could he not? His life was planned generations before and he was to be the recipient of wealth and power of his distinguished lineage. The mother had an eternal smile, her mind a Prozac wonderland. The father had the weight of expectation of success on his shoulders (although the multiple zeros in his bank account did ease that pressure a bit). This drove him to make sure his son was better and richer than he. The young mans parents were just two of many people he had in his corner. He also had his parent’s friends who were bankers, lawyers, judges, molders of society’s fabric. They had friends as well who were congressmen and senators and one had even had dinner with an ex president. Oh what a life forthcoming, for He.

She really didn’t have shit. Everyday was but a reminder of this unsavory truth. Her mother also had multiple zeros in her bank account, but no crooked numbers leading the parade of those fat ugly zeros. This woman had been “planning” the birth of She for the past 5 months. It’s hard to plan your pregnancy when one does not know. She not only had half of a family unit who worked incessantly, but she also had her mother’s friends who were maids, plumbers, janitors and security guards. And they had friends who were assistant managers at Mc Donald’s and other wonderful establishments of filth consumption. One even became manager once.

He now was starting to become a young adult. His future was already planned out. School paid for, jobs waiting for him. A wife (preferably of the step ford variety) already dancing around in his mind. As he was finishing school he learned of how mommy and daddy got rich and how their friends got rich. But the most important lesson he learned was how they stayed that way. He learned about the machine and its lifeblood, war.

She was now being thrust into womanhood. Her future seemingly planned out. She was done with her lousy schooling and now she was waiting for a lousy job. A man (preferably of the superman variety) strutted around in her mind and at times in real life in her bedroom. Unfortunately he was man in name only. She realized early on she will be her own shoulder to cry on, if there was time for crying. As life went on She followed more important pursuits: finding out how she got here in this rut and how to get out of it. She schooled herself and started to realize how the poor got poor and how their friends got poor. The most important lesson she learned however was how they stayed poor. She learned about the machine and its lifeblood, war.

He loved his life, his family and his church. He was your model citizen, but it wasn’t enough. It was not enough that he became an updated version of his parents, generation 2.0. For some reason he was not satisfied that he made enough income so that he and his wife and three girlfriends can have a secure life. No, he wanted a say in how the money moved around inside the machine. The machine that has treated him so well since his mother’s blood was wiped from his wrinkled body. He wanted to see how he could make money off his and other people’s money. He learned the secret of wanting more, always wanting more. This was his end, the means mattered not.

She was now sick. Sick and tired of the same old same old. The struggle to keep sane was paramount. She had enough of the 50 hr work weeks and the long commute home. She had enough of the constant nagging from her mother about getting married and becoming a real woman. She agreed she wanted to become a real woman but thought marriage had nothing to do with it. She wanted more than this machine, this machine that has spit on her since the doctor slapped her mother’s blood off her ass to get her to realize she was now part of this. Some days she wishes that the doctor had never slapped her. Most days she wants to slap back, and to find people who also wanted to slap back with her, so all this would end. Not just for her but for everyone who was willing to hit back. This was the end, the means mattered not.

He finally did it. Yes, all this time he had wanted to take his family to this strange land. He had always seen it on TV and now it was reality for him and his family. The unusual animals and landscapes would be so beautiful. Not to mention the people, how entertaining will they be!! This trip served a dual purpose as He was here to hammer out agreements on control of his mines and his factories. Mines that vomit diamonds and factories that vomit hundred dollar sneakers. He didn’t realize, or mind that these mines also vomited the blood of its workers and its child soldiers that protected them from rivals. After all the machine needed liquid to keep itself well lubricated so it can keep grinding.

She finally did it. She and her friends picked up a gun. They had thought long and hard about this. Not about violence versus non violence but whom to inflict the violence on. They had read about and focused their anger on those who kept this machine alive. Namely the politicians and those who protect them: security guards, policeman and the paramilitary officers. She and her friends bribed most of them and killed the rest. She didn’t realize, or mind that she was now destroying so many families. These were people who would not slap back, so they had to be punished (this is how her mind reasoned away the sin). They held up banks and bought more guns. They also took over factories and mines, the places where blood flowed. All the places the machine needed to produce the lubricant so it can keep grinding. She will stop the grinding.

He couldn’t figure it out. He had come, with his family all the way to this strange land, and this is how he is thanked, by his mines and factories being taken over? These places were his property he thought. He didn’t fly thousands of miles to let strangers take over his property. That would be like having random people ransack thru your house he thought. Who were these people, these darker people? Weren’t these people happy he built these mines and these factories so now they can have meager salaries? These darker people seemed happy to him when they welcomed their family at the airport with their happy songs played on strange instruments. Those who weren’t happy were just crazy he thought. This strange land would be better off if these unhappy people were hidden away, disappeared. It would all be ok in the end the machine will sort itself out, he thought. But not everyone was convinced of his optimism. How would everything get back to normal, to the time when the machine was doing the slapping instead of being slapped? He was now called to employ the lessons learned about economy’s other face, war. War will sort it all out he hoped. All was better now, the machine was starting to slap back.

She couldn’t figure it out. She and the others had done so much. She had put the other Shes and the downtrodden Hes in charge but not much had changed. They were all still poor. This fight they thought had ended was just beginning. She thought she had seen the last of the rich but she and her cohorts were still being attacked by them. But these rich were different. They did not look like her. They spoke strangely and fought strangely. She saw in them the beating heart of the machine, and from this she and her friends gathered courage. These agents of the machine killed everyone; women, babies and old men. What she was most concerned with though was eventually they would kill all those who were willing to pierce the heart of the machine. Could she kill as they did and if so what would that make her? What would that make her cohorts, her comrades, her friends? Does this even matter?

As She thought this the well lubricated Machine continued to grind untold numbers. The blood of the maids, plumbers, janitors and of She made it so. The machine would never have to worry for thirst, because there will always be blood to quench it. That is the end. The means matter not.