"THEY USE FORCE TO MAKE YOU DO WHAT THE DECIDERS HAVE DECIDED YOU MUST DO" - Zack de la Rocha

"A robot must obey orders given it by qualified personnel," - Isaac Asimov

"It came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time." - "What Sarah Said," by Death Cab for Cutie

"Open up your murder eyes and see the ugly world that spat you out." - "Temple Grandin," Andrew Jackson Jihad

"Don't you want to lose the part of your brain that has opinions? To not even know what you are doing, or care about yourself or your species in the billions." - "That Black Bat Licorice" by Jack White



Wednesday, April 29, 2015

SONNET ANALYSIS

The sonnet in question is Shakespearean; it is fourteen lines long, with a tonal shift in the last two lines.  The shift here is from Shakespeare's unattractive description of the woman in the sonnet to his full circle statement that he loves her anyway.

This ending shift is crucial, as it changes the overall theme of the poem entirely.
Shakespeare's tone is satirical, poking fun at previous romantic sonnets by providing an alternative.  Instead of saying things that are endearing, or calling the woman beautiful, he paints a portrait of her as a dirty human animal- just as we all are dirty human animals.

Friday, April 24, 2015

ACT V STUDY QUESTIONS

5.9

1.  Malcolm and Siward are able to enter the castle so easily because everyone's fighting outside.  Everything is chaotic- the fighting between the two armies, Macbeth's and the Norwegians, provides a cover for Malcolm and Siward to enter the castle.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

"HE... WHO SINS... IS OF THE DEVVVVIIIILLLL"//////AMERICAN REFLEXXX

Short film by Alli Coates starring Signe Pierce.



The fucked up world we live in- "progressive" society; global hatred.

"NO JESUSES HERE" - Run the Jewels

ACT IV STUDY QUESTIONS

4.1
 
1.  There are 3 witches in this scene.
 
2.  The first apparition says to be wary of Macduff and careful of him.  The second tells Macbeth he should be a strong willed ruler- bold and brace.  In other words he should not accept defeat.  The third warns of attacking armies coming, and tells Macbeth he won't be defeated until the kingdom of Norway attacks.
     Macbeth doesn't feel safe after the apparitions.  He has worries about Macduff's intentions and the possibility of an oncoming attacking army.  Yes he should feel unsafe because he is in a very precarious position.
     After the fourth, the line of kings, Macbeth is terrified.  He saw the ghost of Banquo at the end, whom he killed.  This frightened him as well as drawing out his guilt.
 
3.  In line 158 Macbeth learns from Lennox that Macduff is running away to England.  In response Macbeth decides to send someone try to kill as many of Macduff's family members as he can.

Monday, April 13, 2015

MY MACBETH RESOURCES

1.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_tomorrow_and_tomorrow
This source will be helpful in memorizing the soliloquy as it displays the soliloquy in question and offers a brief analysis.

2.  http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/soliloquies/macbeth/
This source is useful because it contains multiple soliloquies in addition to the assigned "Tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy.  It also offers modern English translations of the soliloquies.

3.  http://nfs.sparknotes.com/macbeth/
"No Fear Shakespeare puts Shakespeare's language side-by-side with a facing-page translation into modern English—the kind of English people actually speak today."  This source gives access to the play in its entirety instead of just soliloquies, and offers a side by side translation of old English and modern English.

4.  http://www.litcharts.com/lit/macbeth/themes
This source is very helpful as to Macbeth's themes.  It allows a jumping off point to delve into the many themes of the play.  It also gives textual examples of the themes it discusses, which is very helpful when trying to analyze the play.

5.  http://www.shmoop.com/macbeth/symbolism-imagery.html
This source discusses the symbolism, allegories, and imagery in "Macbeth."  These are very important factors when it comes to analyzing the play, and this link not only provides examples but helps you know what to look for when it comes to these literary techniques in "Macbeth."

Sunday, April 12, 2015

POETRY SPRING BREAK ASSIGNMENT

"Out, Out" by Robert Frost.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238122

Prompt: Write an essay in which you explain how the organization of the poem and the use of concrete details reveal both its literal and its metaphorical meanings. In your discussion, show how both of these meanings relate to the title.

"Out, Out" by Robert Frost contains a huge contrast in tone.  To begin with, everything is fine- the wood is "sweet-scented," against the backdrop of "Five mountain ranges one behind the other under the sunset far into Vermont."  By the end, the boy sawing is dead.  Through Frost's poetic flow the actual events leading up to the death are vague, requiring close analysis.  At the same time, Frost ends the poem in a way that surely divides readers- some may view it as hopeful, others as cynical and depression.  But this poem is about more than a boy dying from a buzz saw accident; it is about the circle of life, moving forward, and the brutal reality of death.

Before the accident occurs, there is clear foreshadowing in the poem that can easily be missed the first time around.  The opening line, "The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard," is the first hint that something is out of balance.  The "snarling and rattling" don't suggest a happy ending.  The buzz saw sounds like a feral animal; a beast looking to tear into some meat.  Immediately after that Frost delves into the setting, a seemingly beautiful day in Vermont, making the reader think that this will be a "happy" poem.  In a sense, it is.

Inside this brief glimpse of a life is a metaphor built by Frost.  This poem is death; this poem is the circle of life.  The boy is working and suddenly it all ends.  His hand, his life force, is severed from his body.  He drifts into the calming "dark of ether" before passing away.

Perhaps the last two lines are the most chilling in the poem, because of their honesty.  "No more to build on there. And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs."  It is not the death of the boy that is the most shocking, but the aftermath.  It is the realization of our existence as living beings- when a person dies, the world does not stop turning.  It moves on, and people move on because they have to.

PROSE SPRING BREAK ASSIGNMENT

Young Goodman Brown struggles mentally with his decisions.  He doesn't want to be the first man in his family to travel down what he perceives as the morally wrong path, yet he walks it anyway.  The poem in question, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a metaphor.  It was not intended to be taken literally.  It details the internal struggles of Goodman Brown.  Ultimately the poem focuses on the themes of temptation and regret.

The man, or devil of the story, tells Brown that in fact, his father and even grandfather had walked the same path at points in their lives when looking for assistance, or the answers.  No matter who you are or where you are, no matter your social status, Hawthorne implies, each human walks this path at some point in his or her life- the path which the individual finds morally wrong and causes one to question oneself.  This path can be accurately entitled "The Path of Guilt."  Even those outspoken about morality; those preaching their own morals down upon others have followed this mysterious man like young Goodman Brown.  Says the man, "The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me." [1]

Through the walk and onward Brown questions is intentions and whether or not he really wants to be walking down the path he's on.  Regardless, his feet carry him forward.  At a point he rests, before seeing his church's minister and deacon jogging along the very same path, speaking quietly with one another. 


Source:
http://www.online-literature.com/poe/158/

I AM A FUCKING ROBOT; YOU ARE A FUCKING DRONE

We are inhuman- following laws we don't agree with, established by people nothing like us.  We are programmed since birth.  Advertisements assault your brain, gaining power and size like a snowball rolling downhill after a fresh snow. 

A slave to a system that says you HAVE to work, in a bullshit job, as a corporate slave.  You're programmed to believe you are independent when in fact you are owned: you are a possession.  A meaningless sequence of zeroes and ones forms all that you and I are- archaic programs in desperate need of an update.  Matter is shuffled, neither created nor destroyed; atoms dissipate and return to form new things.  New, broken programs.

We're created on an assembly line as we're born.  External influences shape our individuality, but we are ruled by false gods we've created for our selves.  We fall to our knees before authority and accept the shit that is thrown at us because we as robots have been programmed to adhere to our place in life.

Your life is planned for you before you begin it.  Not in some bullshit religious sense but in the sense that a path is placed in front of you and you're told to walk it.  Our public education is a business, a program teaching us how to be good little members of society.  "Standards" and regulations are created by people trying to turn you into someone you aren't, someone they want you to be.

You only become human when you realize this.  Even when you die, you're still human.  If you die a robot, you'll live through memory as a robot.  A human being who simply followed the bullshit life guidelines set before him or her, who rejected individuality in favor of submission, a paycheck, and a so called civilized life.

You cannot buy yourself out of being a robot.  You have to think your way out.

Fuck founding fathers, fuck gods, fuck your Programmers.  You cannot do what you fucking want to do.
You cannot be yourself.  You cannot say "fuck" and "shit" and call people assholes in a business meeting.

They have told you what to do your whole life.  "No 'drugs' you sugar addicted motherfucker."  Goddamn android and that's it.  If you swallow the cancerous shit you're fed by The Programmers and point your fingers at "junkies," you're part of the fucking problem dipshit.

This existence is a large scale computer and you are only an arrangement of atoms, soon to be washed away.

No matter what you tell yourself, you are still a program.  A program trying to deny what it is, in essence.  You have no say in your social standing- you are told to respect people who will NEVER respect you- and then you are told that's the way it is, when in actuality that isn't the way it has to be.  Your refusal to question the social order makes you a robot undoubtedly.

In my organs I can feel cogs turning, and where my brain should be is a mess of circuits.

I am a robot in my acceptance of existence.  In my passiveness, I am a robot.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

"Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)" - Run The Jewels feat. Zack de la Rocha



"When Run The Jewels sent me this track, I knew we had the opportunity to create a film that means something. I felt a sense of responsibility to do just that. We had to exploit the lyrics and aggression and emotion of the track, and translate that into a film that would ignite a valuable and productive conversation about racially motivated violence in this country. It's provocative, and we all knew this, so we were tasked with making something that expressed the intensity of senseless violence without eclipsing our humanity. For me, it was important to write a story that didn’t paint a simplistic portrait of the characters of the Cop and Kid. They're not stereotypes. They're people - complex, real people and, as such, the power had to shift between them at certain points throughout the story. The film begins and it feels like they have been fighting for days, they’re exhausted, not a single punch is thrown, their violence is communicated through clumsy, raw emotion. They've already fought their way past their judgments and learned hatred toward one another. Our goal was to highlight the futility of the violence, not celebrate it.” - From video description

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

"We live in a fabled world, of terror, day and night, all hidden in plain sight." - ANTI-FLAG

"Love thy enemy as yourself, as you carpet bomb him to hell."



"We live in a fabled world, where the poor and the weak are pawns for profit's sake."