The first thing that hits me is the shrieking. Thinking back to when I was a child, yes, I remember that shrieking was somehow an integral part of play. As an adult it simply makes me cringe. The sound seems to bypass the auditory organs and perform a direct sonic assault to my brain. The… Continue reading It’s loud, individual conversations cannot be discerned, and this post is way too long.
Category: Reflections
Binary Codes: The Symphony of My World
The past year has seen an explosion of construction on our campus, which seems to carry a message of new beginnings and reinvention in itself, but is more the context for my post this week. The new Engineering Building has become a second home for me in this my final year of undergraduate study, its… Continue reading Binary Codes: The Symphony of My World
route 66
I have the pleasure of sitting in rush hour traffic on route 66west when I leave campus and head towards my house. Firstly, I noticed the noise emitting from my own car. Even with the radio off, there is a subliminally low, yet high pitch whirrrrrr of my car, esp. when the a.c. is on. … Continue reading route 66
Bookstore Background Noise
Outisde, the air hisses lowly, twin sets of red taillights follow each other along the clogged road toward the mall. Scattered fragments of conversations from ambling pairs headed toward the front doors, a man huffing on a cigarette walks by, questioning directions from the triangle lodged in his ear. In the vestibule, the closest thing… Continue reading Bookstore Background Noise
Noisy, crowded and steamy place
It is a crowded and a steamy place that most people including me go to relax and think. Seems like a torture to go to a place like that. But the fact is that somehow the steam or vapor that this crowded space provides helps to alleviate the pain of a knotted muscle. Quieting my… Continue reading Noisy, crowded and steamy place
JC Food Court
In the JC food court. I usually try to avoid this place as much as possible, the noise, the crowd, the “kids.” It’s early, so there aren’t that many people here yet. I’m still looking for patterns and codes though. The noise of the fountain in the background, distracting yet soothing? But not really. What… Continue reading JC Food Court
Airport Parking Lot
My cousin is getting married in London over the weekend. Today is my flight. The cars furiously honked at each other in the jammed parking lot of Dulles International Airport. The sound of the tires squealing as people realized they needed to hit the brakes to avoid collision echoed in the polluted air. The tires emitted a… Continue reading Airport Parking Lot
The Johnson Center
The building echoed with the sound of chairs, people, and trays shuffling about. From time to time there was a rise and ebb to the volume as groups flowed in and out of the building. Wrappers for potato chips and convenience store sandwiches crunched as students passed the time between classes, wishing it were Friday.… Continue reading The Johnson Center
Messages in the Mundane
DeLillo writes, while Jack Gladney and his family are shopping in a busy supermarket, that “I realized that the place was awah in noise…and over it all, or under it all, a dull and unlocatable roar, as of some form of swarming life just outside the range of human apprehension” (36). Four our class assignment,… Continue reading Messages in the Mundane
It’s a Wonder We Can Sleep
The engine, tires on road, computers, ipods, the occasional CD player for those that refuse to switch or lack money to do so, talking, snoring, breathing bodies in almost every seat. I, myself, am wearing headphones on this double decker monstrosity of a bus. Regardless of my blocked ears I can still hear everything. There’s… Continue reading It’s a Wonder We Can Sleep
LH and WN
Some differences I noticed between Lucifer’s Hammer and White Noise were firstly, that White Noise is told in the first person perspective. After being inside so many people’s heads and constantly being bombarded with changes in perspective in Lucifer’s Hammer, I have to say, this first person perspective was refreshing. Another thing that I noticed was… Continue reading LH and WN
The Waves of Radiation and The Smell of Existentialism
The Waves of Radiation and The Smell of Existentialism -“Everything is concealed in symbolism, hidden by veils of mystery and layers of cultural material. But it is psychic data, absolutely. The large doors slide open, they close unbidden. Energy waves, incident radiation (Delillo 37).” — Murray Jay Sinkind. This quote I believe ultimately sums up… Continue reading The Waves of Radiation and The Smell of Existentialism
Panasonic White Noise
The entire first volume of White Noise is devoted to apparently anything but the “disaster” element. It opens as a first-person narrative, and relates to us – through the eyes of our narrator – the inner workings of (and delicate relationships strung between) himself and the other members of his family. On first reading, none… Continue reading Panasonic White Noise
White Noise & Catalogs
Fed up with the interjections by that unaccountable narrative voice passing judgment on characters in Lucifer’s Hammer and yet a huge fan of subjectivity, I was glad to read the first-person P.O.V., “I” on the first page of White Noise. Almost immediately we read Jack Gladney’s penchant for a Whitman-esque catalog technique to describe his… Continue reading White Noise & Catalogs
double standards in LH
One point that I want to elaborate is the obvious sexism in this novel, as well as the misogyny that seems to be strongly prevalent among some of our classmates. Throughout the last few weeks as we read through Lucifer’s, female characters would be mercilessly stamped as the “epitome of uselessness” and/or a tramp. I’m… Continue reading double standards in LH