Pretty Puppies

So, as winter is looming, I decided that my dogs might need a little warming up for the holidays. The white one is a Maltese named Macho. His coat got very matted about a month ago, so we had the groomer shave almost all of his fur off. He looked so cold (and skinny ^_^)! So, I made him this sweater.

I know it looks a little grungy, but that's because my other dog Bruce got jealous and tried to tear it off of Macho with his teeth. Bruce is a Boston terrier. 'So,' I said to myself 'I'll make Bruce one of his own so he won't have to be jealous.'

This one was a bit more difficult to engineer. Because Bruce is a Boston terrier, he's top heavy. This means that every time he tries to lift his leg up to pee properly, he feels like he's going to fall over :( . So, he overcompensates and pees all over his legs and chest. Gross!

Actually, this problem is pretty common for the breed. But I wanted to make him something that he wouldn't pee on even with his balancing problem. Thus this bare-bones "sweater(vest?)" was born.

He tries to bite it when I put it on, but once he has it on, he likes to strut around in it. I wanted to take pictures of the dogs in their sweaters because the sweaters look better with pretty puppies in them. At first Bruce was confused by the camera...

but he started to like the attention and pose for me.

With Macho it was quite another story. I had to sneak up on him to get this one:

And after that, I had to chase him under the table. But he still turned his head so I couldn't quite see his face.

Clearly, he's camera shy so I left him alone after that. But aren't they cute?!

Dystopia

Dystopia:

from Ancient Greek: δυσ-: bad-, ill- and Ancient Greek: τόπος: place, landscape

(alternatively, cacotopia,[1] or anti-utopia)

-in literature, an often futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. (wikipedia.org)

I have read and seen many other dystopian texts. My favorite by far is a young adult book called Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix. If you've seen the movie The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, then you basically know the plotline of this book (by the way, Haddix's book came out first). If you haven't seen the movie, then Running Out of Time is a novel about a community living in the confines of a reconstructed 1840's village when a diphtheria epidemic breaks out among the children. In the beginning of the novel, the people seem content to be there, but it is soon revealed that everyone is being kept there against their will. When Jessie, the protagonist, escapes to find medicine in the modern world (1996), she's forced to adapt to the reality of new technology and social interaction.

Super Sad True Love Story is a dystopian novel because it plays on common themes that mark a dystopia. Like Haddix's novel, Shteyngart focuses on the social decline, but SSTLS also puts particular emphasis on consumerism. Whereas in George Orwell's 1984, the control of the government was to be feared, nowadays, the obsessive need for more is more pressing. In a large part, the economic roller coaster that America is on is indicative of the connection to politics. SSTLS touches on this theme as the American state is completely controlled by the whims of Asian influence. Lenny Abramov is the unlikely (and somewhat tragic) hero that strains against the lack of intimacy and emotion that marks his world. Eunice Park becomes an outlet for his affections.

Intertextuality

INTERTEXTUALITY

Intertextuality is the shaping of a text by one or more texts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality). This makes me think of the saying that "we are all a product of our times". I think that, not only does Diaz make frequent reference to fantasy lore--Dungeons and Dragons, Dr. Who, and many other texts--he references history as a text. A good amount of the admittedly opinionated footnotes are references to historical places or events. These historical stories shape the novel and the ways in which the characters interact with each other. The era of Trujillo, in many ways, traps the Dominican people into a cycle of machismo and violence. Ironically, Oscar de Leon chooses "the Genres" and intelligence that is often ridiculed. He becomes a product of a different aspect of the times through otakuness. The text also feeds back into itself as an intertext. The story of Oscar's mother, Belicia, and the fuku that follws them is a story within a story that contributes in its own way as well.

Postmodernism?

I, too, have listened to teachers talk about postmodernism without understanding what it meant in a literary sense. I have taken art history, so I understand the significance of the artistic postmodern movement. There are certain similarities and differences between the two. Both seem to have evolved with the rising tide of capitalism and the recession of religion as a prominent force in the world. However, literary postmodernism, for the most part, has added a certain amount of duplicity to the written word. DeLillo plays heavily upon the postmodernist ideals in his piece, Mao II. In every conversation, there rarely seems to be a unity of the characters' thoughts. In the rare situation that the characters can focus on the same subject while together, their respective realities and/or opinions on the situation fragment what could be a meaningful exchange.

In all the definitions or explanations of postmodernism that I have read, I have found no real definition of it. Any attempt at a concrete definition of postmodernism would defeat the point of the movement. Postmodernism focuses on the individual experience and differing perspectives that may (but more than often probably will not) coalesce into a collective reality. I, for the most part, do not understand the use of a literary or artistic style that does not make an attempt to be profound or seek to unify. Yes, the individual is important, but the group can be important as well, so a healthy amount of skepticism is always necessary. Postmodernism in its purest form can become its own meta-narrative.