Writing with Rock with Blackberry Juice
I wanted to write in my own blood. I know where to find blood and I am familiar with its properties as a type of ink, thanks to one rather misguided seventh-grader. Unfortunately, the assignment forbade my first instinct and forced me to get a little more creative.
Growing up, I was forced to pick berries with my parents every summer. All of my summer memories include stained, sticky fingers. The idea of using berries as ink was my next idea. Since berries grow in nature and not in my veins, they replaced blood as my ‘ink.’
My next task was to determine what I would use as a stylus. I didn’t think my dog would approve of me cutting his hair to fashion into a brush, so that idea was quickly discarded. While perusing my yard, I happened upon a stick. This small stick was a fortuitous find because each end of the stick could be used differently. One end was hard and even, so I could use it as a sort of chisel on soft material, or a stationary brush on hard material. The other end of the stick was a bit jagged and soft. This end would be like a painter’s brush on hard material, and virtually useless on soft material. Two of the three supplies I had in hand; the most challenging lay ahead of me.
The produce section at my local Kroger provided some nice blackberries for ink, but I wasn’t getting much inspiration in the form of a writing surface. Lettuce? Too thin and flimsy. Corn husks? Same problem. Bananas? I felt that using a banana peel was worth a shot. If anything, I would have a nice, healthy snack while working.
The area of my backyard that produced the stick stylus also produced two options for a writing surface: a rock and some bark. I choose the bark because it is a tree-product like the paper that holds this explanation.
Keats, John. The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker: You Might As Well Live. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.
The year 1925 landed in the middle of the roaring twenties. In the 1920’s, a lot of things happened such as the prohibition of alcohol, social change where more people lived in the cities, and the overall boom of wealth as the economy grew. This change in the lifestyle of the people sparked a decade of riches. Once accumulating every dollar after dollar, millionaires bought mansions to throw extravagant parties, galas and balls to impress the rich, the richer, and the richest. Not only did money play an important part of this era, but literature also had a significant and vital role. One of the numerous writers was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wanting to capture the twenties in its midst, Fitzgerald wrote the literary classic, The Great Gatsby. The
different colored water-soluble marker pens (Vis a Vis pens and Crayola water soluble work well. Be sure that it is water soluble. Be sure to test any green, water soluble inks that you have.)
The Great Gatsby displays how the time of the 1920s brought people to believe that wealth and material goods were the most important things in life, and that separation of the social classes was a necessary need. Fitzgerald’s choice to expose the 1920s for the corrupt time that it really was is what makes him one of the greatest authors of his time, and has people still reading one of his greatest novels, The Great Gatsby, decades
In the 1920s, prohibition, the ban on alcohol is in full force in order to better society, alcohol was seen as the corrupter of people’s judgement. Ironically prohibition caused society to decay, despite the many boons happening at the time. Beneath the seemingly prosperous country lies corruption, inequality, and despair. The corruption is so obvious, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a book on this subject called The Great Gatsby. His main character, Jay Gatsby, spent his whole life trying to become rich enough to win the heart of a now married Daisy. He became rich by bootlegging, selling alcohol illegally. In the end, he ultimately didn't win Daisy’s heart. She instead stayed with her husband, Tom Buchanan, as she rather have a predictable future, rather than an uncertain one. In the novel, Fitzgerald explores the corruption of wealth and how it causes suffering to others, while the rich themselves don’t face the consequences.
And so, in engaging in my project, I found myself thinking of how I could adopt a natural tool and adapt that tool to my writing task. I first thought about writing some letters in water, but I could really find no natural container to hold the water. I could have used some sticks or some type of colored liquid and take a snapshot of it, but there was no natural platform to hold the water. This was not going to work.
something on the end of a pencil. That was the night that I started to figure and configure, contemplate, and computate just how I might leave my delible mark on this life” (Inquisitors and Insurgents). The pencil has been a life giving force, a fountain of life, a symbol of readiness and ability to write. Her professor and mentor Dr. Gloria Wade Gayles encouraged her to show her poems to Nikki Giovanni who corrected them with a red pen but assured Finney that something good was about to happen. She spent two years attending Toni Cade Bambara workshop with a pencil and paper. She stresses the metaphor of sharpened thought “The more I pencil-dig down,
If the outlaws of the west received a lot of historical attention, then the second to get as much attention was the 1920’s prohibition coupled with a gangster era and the depression that came later in the 1930’s. The prohibition era was ruled by gangsters were some of the times involved in the social, political and economic situations during these times. The prohibition era was ruled by gangsters who were revered and feared as they controlled gambling, sale of liquor, and prostitution amongst other illicit businesses. The depression as well created another outlaw, fed by greed and need. The gangsters of this era were also revered and were associated with the deadliest and wildest stories in news media. The roaring Jazz age of the 1920’s, and the concept described later by F. Scott Fitzgerald as “The greatest, Gaudiest spree in History” (Fitzgerald 34) have all emerged to form a common description of America and the prohibition influence. This essay discusses prohibition as seen through lens of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book ‘The Great Gatsby.
America in the 1920s was a time of prosperity, but also a time of social and political change. Many select people including the rich gained a more rebellious, law-defying nature that turned against both traditional social norms and laws. Women finally gained the right to vote after centuries of being suppressed. And the nation split on the issue of Prohibition. The characters and themes in The Great Gatsby are the perfect example of the decade’s archetype.
In the aftermath of World War I, the 1920s twinkled on the horizon with the promise of hope. Bookended by the epidemic of 1920 and the The Wall Street crash of 1929, the decade was a time of decadence, frivolity, and escape. Rich or poor, people lived in the moment, loved anything new and the young partied like there was no tomorrow. A readers look into the decade can be found in the era's greatest memoir: The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald applied the social and political issues of the 1920's and its innumerable characteristics to enhance the plot of The Great Gatsby.
Some of the major themes include the decline of the American dream in the 1920s and the hollowness of the upper class ("The Great Gatsby”). On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman (Einem). The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope ("The Great Gatsby”). The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular, the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy ("Literature - Boundless”). Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends ("The Roaring”). As Fitzgerald saw it, the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness ("The Great Gatsby”). Even after many decades, the relevance of The Great Gatsby increases because it is the definitive romance of the American dream, a concept that haunts our society (Bloom
For many years, children growing up in a single parent family have been viewed as different. Being raised by only one parent seems impossible to many yet over the decades it has become more prevalent. In today’s society many children have grown up to become emotionally stable and successful whether they had one or two parents to show them the rocky path that life bestows upon all human beings. The problem lies in the difference of children raised by single parents versus children raised by both a mother and a father. Does a child need both parents? Does a young boy need a father figure around? Does the government provide help for single parents? What role do step-parents and step-siblings play? With much speculation, this topic has become a very intriguing argument. What people must understand is that properly raising a child does not rely on the structure of a family but should be more focused on the process
3. Single Parents’ Kids Do as well in School As Those in Two-Parent Homes: Infotrac.. October 25, 1999.Online. .
In my project I attempted to write without the assistance of normal technologies that are often taken for granted. It proved a difficult undertaking. Before beginning to write I had to find something to write on. As I searched my house and yard I realized that technology-free materials are difficult to find. I eventually found a birch log by the fireplace, which was once used by Native Americans for the purpose of writing. After tearing off the bark, and shaking off the dirt I had my “paper.” The hardest part was still not over; I needed to find a replacement for the normal writing aid of a pencil or pen. I replaced ink with honey and traded a pen for a feather. My next step was the very slow process of streaking honey on the bark to form words. The honey was the same color as the birch and blended in with the wood. To f...
pen. At least it works for me. I'm gland my parents bought me the use