Standing Before Rebellion.

I didn't actually realize this at first, but my book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, has a major theme that ties perfectly into the not so long past protests in Egypt. When an unexpected guest checks in at the mental hospital, his bold and ambitious ideas soon spark a flame of rebellion and a kind of mutiny throughout almost the entire ward. Not in Egypt, I mean in my book. But our antagonist, Big Nurse, who rules over the hospital with a cold, strict eye, could certainly be compared to Egypt's past leader, Hosni Mubarak. I guess before I begin my real post I though it would be interesting to show the connections to the real world through this book, which was written almost fifty years ago.

But instead of digging deeper into the major theme of rebellion in this book, which I find a bit overused, I thought it would be more compelling to see rebellion through the eyes of a bystander, one who is caught between playing it safe and going by the rules, or standing up for their beliefs. But then again--what if they don't believe in rebellious ideas? What if they're fine with the way the system is running already?

Rebellion is an issue that you can probably see has much to many branches (and twigs off of the branches) for me to fit into one blog post. Attempting to would completely mess this up, and many of my posts have been the victim of too broad a topic. I'd like to take a walk in our main character (Chief Bromden)'s shoes for a moment.

Bromden, or "Broom" as he is called by his fellow patients, is a huge, silent "Chronic", or presumably very ill patient who also works most of the time as a janitor. When the unexpected guest, Randall McMurphy, steps into the hospital, he quickly realizes that the rules there are not for him and he's determined to crack the Big Nurse and change the way the hospital works, and in a while he has many of the other patients joining him on his quest. Bromden stands aside the whole time, staying out of the votes for cigarette distribution or television watching time. At first he doesn't see what's wrong with the ward, but then his eyes are opened up as McMurphy displays all of the horrors to the patients. Yet he still holds back. He has been labeled as an idiot and wants to keep that label and avoid trouble.

Change of subject once more--I'm studying acoustics in science class for my exit project. I learned about refraction today. Say you have two mediums-air and water. A sound wave can travel through air and into water, but the sound of it is changed as it passes from air to a much denser medium -- water. There's an imaginary line that's perpendicular to the boundary in which the two mediums meet -- the normal. Together they form an x -- the normal is the vertical, the boundary the horizontal. (Is this too confusing? Bear with me, please. I swear, it does relate to my book). As the sound wave hits the boundary at an angle, it bends towards the normal because the second medium is denser. If the first medium was denser and the second was less dense, then the sound wave would bend away from the normal.

Now, to the point. This is exactly how I feel with the issues in this book. The boundary represents the separation between the rest of the ward and Chief Bromden. The normal is exactly what it sounds like -- the strict policies of the ward that Bromden decides to live by. The sound waves are like Bromden himself. At first, Bromden's world is a dense, hard medium, and the rest of the ward is light as air. Bromden bends the sound waves towards the normal in order to contain himself and keep out of trouble. However, everybody else's sound waves are coming in and changing his medium into one so much lighter, one that can allow his waves to bend away from the normal and out into open space.

The point of all of these complex scientific analogies is really meant so I can explain that you have to believe in a rebellion in order to take part in it. That belief may be instilled by other people, and many times it is. Sometimes we get so enveloped in our corrupt worlds that we don't even realize the terrible things going on. We need a sound wave from a dense medium to break through and make us believe. It's not like you can just jump into a protest when you don't know what it's about. You need passion, information, and enlightenment.

You're probably really confused by now, what with all the wandering ideas and such, but I warned you that rebellion was much to broad a topic to be represented in one single blog post. But don't expect any more on this -- those science facts are as painful for me to write as they are for you to read.

...rosebud...

Now, I'm no film snob or anything, but I happen to love old movies. I find such a great sense of comfort in them - I like the fuzziness of the black-and-white shots of glamourous women with lace covering their porcelain faces and of stern men in thin mustaches and bowler hats. Something about old-fashioned settings and scenarios always makes me feel better after a long day.

I have my dad to thank for most of my "tidbits of culture" - from music to movies. However, I was outraged when he failed to show me what I just recently found out was widely considered the greatest movie ever made - Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. And I was doubly outraged when I found out that we've had a copy of it for a very long time and he's neglected to even put it on.

Well, this past weekend I was bedridden and miserable with the stomach flu, and I decided to finally put on the greatest movie of all time.

And from the second I saw one of the very first shots of Kane's lips muttering the word "Rosebud" and his hand dropping a snow globe, I knew this movie would be a true work of art. I was not wrong.

For its time, the style that Citizen Kane is shot in is incredibly modern, from the long-focus shots of long corridors to the silhouetted figures against a background of light that

illuminates floating dust particles to create this airy, ethereal effect. This was the movie that truly started modern filmmaking.

Every single second of this film is a masterpiece - I was continuously blown away as each scene passed. It's very rare that I feel this strongly about a film, but I do believe that Citizen Kane deserves to be called the greatest movie ever made - not only for its beauty, but for its earthquake-like effect on the world of filmmaking.

A little past halfway into the movie, however, the DVD started breaking up and freezing - ah, the dreadful curse of disk scratches has come upon us again. I was in utter despair for the rest of the day. And alas, I have not seen all of this movie.

However, there is no doubt in my mind that Citizen Kane is not an excellent, excellent movie. But sometimes I wonder if my opinion on it would have been different if I hadn't been telling myself that it was the greatest movie ever made, before I even started it. Is that causing me to twist my ideas unknowingly into something they're not? Hm.

ps...sorry about the tiny pictures. i think something's wrong with the computer.

ye olde mentor bloges.

I am one of those mean/selfish/inconsiderate interweb personalities that becomes absorbed in their own blog and only the comments they receive, meanwhile neglecting to comment on the blogs of peers. That doesn't necessarily mean I do not read other people's blogs, it just means that I am too "busy" basking in my own blog comments. Which is terrible, I know, and I feel very bad about it.

However, here are some of my favorite blogs and the links to them, in case you are a nicer person than I and can actually take the time to make someone else feel happy by commenting on their wonderful posts.

My brother Ben's blog. I find it incredibly fascinating to be able to so easily access his work when he is always so protective of it at home. I have never been able to read so much of his writing normally, and I feel like I am seeing a whole other side of him when I can read his posts. He is extremely creative in his posts and I love the poems he writes and his interesting opinions and connections with books. I feel like his blog really stands out from others because he writes about such unique things and has such a special writing style. The post that really exemplifies this creativity is one of his first posts, Mrs. Whatsit, The High Priestess. It was really interesting to read about the connections between tarot cards and A Wrinkle in Time. Fascinating. Nice work, bro.

Secondly, there is my friend Izzy's blog. And I'm not just writing this because we're close friends - Izzy writes about interesting books and topics with unexpected and thought provoking angles to them. She doesn't limit her blog to just school-related posts, however - she posts about music, movies, and other aspects of pop culture that are so interesting to read about. I look forward to reading her posts each week because she never fails to be creative with her writing. One of my favorite posts of her is called Congratulate Me..., where she talks about Alfred Hitchcock's movie Shadow of a Doubt. I personally love reading movie reviews and opinions, so this was so much fun to read. She also leaves great comments, and I thank her for that.

Then there's Pia's blog -- how could I leave this lady out? Pia never ceases to amaze me with her impossibly advanced and developed writing style and vocabulary. Her posts are marvels in themselves - it's as if a doctor or some other really smart person wrote them. But on top of all that, she writes about interesting topics and great books and with such creativity - it is clear that Pia is a very gifted writer. A great post is this one on the book Looking For Alaska by John Green, called The Great Perhaps. She gives an excellent interpretation of a wonderful book. Not much to say here - keep up the good work, Pia.

Lastly, there is a blog by a classmate that I admire so much for her bold, creative writing style. This is Audrey and her blog "My Infinite Reading Post". Besides writing about good books, Audrey always presents her readers with an entertaining, humorous, and very creative blog post that's almost casual - she doesn't overanalyze things - instead, she addresses her ideas and opinions with a voice that is unique and always a pleasure to read. One that shows so much of her unique voice is Are We Allowed to Have Co-writers? PLEASE!! Even by just reading the title of this post, you can tell that she has so much personality. I love how she lets her younger sister write part of it - it adds a whole new feeling to the post. Great blog, Audrey.

Please check these blogs out, readers, they are well worth reading.

Tom Waits and Edward Hopper

I have a weird thing where I often inform my parents about what I've blogged about, yet I prohibit them from reading my posts. When I told my father about my poem inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, instead of him immediately asking "Can I read it?", he offered me one of the thousands of music facts stored in his brain. And now I know that Tom Waits has an album called "Nighthawks at the Diner", whose album artwork is apparently inspired by the Hopper painting. I was intrigued, but my laziness kept me from immediately rushing to the computer and researching it on the Interwebs.

However, lately I've been reacquainting myself with the Tom Waits album "Rain Dogs" and having major flashbacks of the songs playing in our stuffy car while on a long trip to some far away state. Ben and I have happened to love his song "Tango 'Till They're Sore", so I guess I possess a sentimental sort of love for this singer and his husky, sandpaper voice.

I still haven't had the chance to listen to the entire album yet, but I'm intrigued. I'll listen to it this weekend and see if it resembles the painting in any way. I find this so interesting.