The Metamorphosis: Creative Writing

Chapter 1- Another Day's Work

Anthony Williams, the IRS agent, had just completed another day of work. He didn't feel bad about what he did, even though he TOOK families' income away who couldn't afford it, who needed more money for basic needs. He didn't feel sorry for them because taking these peoples' money was his job. Anthony was a devoted tax-collector and auditor. He viewed his job as a duty. He would always tell the poor that they would recieve the benefits of federal taxes one day. But they never did. Wealth continued to find its way into the upper 1%'s hands. Years of trampling over poorer people had turned Anthony into a hard-nosed, money-taking go-hard who could care less if he took peoples' money rudely or by force.

Chapter 2- The Transformation

As Anthony entered his house, he felt a jabbing pain on his body that started at his feet and traveled up his body, ending in an enormous migraine that nearly split his head in half. The pain was a repetitious stomp, like his body was being stepped on by shoes with daggers on the soles, with a rhythm of footsteps. He started sweating, feeling as if he was being tortured by being tied down to a table, unable to move, with a single drop of water hitting his forehead every 5 seconds. He kept feeling the pain, he felt his surroundings change, his being migrate from a conceited, self-centered, uncaring human to the object of his own work. He decided to go to sleep to escape the pain.

Chapter 3- A Fitting Ending

When Anthony woke up, everything was different. He was a long, flimsy, and made of straw. He was a bridge in the mountains of Peru, installed to ease transportation for poor Latin American peoples. People had no regard for him; they trampled on him and abused him until they had crossed on to a new part of their lives. He was now the one being used for other peoples' interests, without anything given to him in return. After the poor, indigenous people had discovered their new opportunites from crossing Anthony, they left him behind, trampled on and bent out of shape, without another thought or care about who they were affecting.

I'll avant your garde....

This week in World Literature we have been learning about the artistic movement of avant garde. It is generally known as a movement that has ideas that are ahead of the present time. It advances the concepts of art without crossing the artistic barriers and limits of the day.

My selected movements within avant garde begin with Cubism. Cubism orignated in France in the early 20th century and spread throughout Europe and the world for the next 30 years. It emphasizes the process of destruction and reconstruction of a picture, idea, or scene into a mix of different basic geometric shapes. Cubism's greatest representatives include Pablo Picasso of Spain and Georges Braque of France. Picasso's greatest piece is considered to be Guernica-an enormous shape reconfiguration of the hectic scene as bombs were dropped on the town of Guernica, Spain during the Spanish Civil War under the rule of Fascist dictator Francisco Franco in the late 1930s.

The next movement I picked was Surrealism. Again, this movement was centered in France, but was spread through Europe. Andre Breton was credited for coining the term "Surrealism," and this type of art depicts the subconscious of the arstist's mind and cannot usually be logically understood by a viewer. Famous surrealist artists include the well-know Salvador Dali and his famous piece, The Persistence of Memory, and Rene Magritte.

Avant-garde is AWESOME!!!!!!

National Eating Disorder?!

Complete Overdose in Action!!!!!

Is there a National Eating Disorder rampant in the United States? It depends on what you consider a "disorder." An eating disorder could mean that all the food in a meal is piled on a table in a disorderly manner. In this case, I believe there is an eating disorder. If you look at an example like, let's say, The Billiard House, one will notice that there is something extensively wrong with the amount of food there is on the table. All the bowls can't even fit on the table! As a former waiter at this "fine" dining establishment, I saw first-hand the disorder that exists(or the order that doesn't exist) when the entire dining room gets full. Bowls dropped, food on the floor, drinks spilled, people slipping, customers hurling all over the table, bowel movements every 3 minutes; all this leads to the most disorderly restaurant on the planet (pretty much). Does this sound like an eating disorder? Yes.

Taken less literally, the meaning of an eating disorder could also mean the complete indulgement of Americans in unhealthy foods. The point is that we, as a country, eat the most and the worst, but can we really be blamed for this so-called "disorder"? Obviously, eating unhealthily has become a part of our culture, or maybe it is our culture. So can we really blame ourselves? As descendants of the "robber barons" and capitalist super-hogs of the Gilded Age in early 20th century America, is it our fault that we have evolved into micro-entrepreneurs in everything we do? We have evolved as the Homo Americanus into people who desire the most for the least: this just happens to include unhealthy eating. Perhaps this was in the cards for us from the beginning. Maybe we were predestined by God himself to live and eat this way. Whether you choose to believe in Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection, or you are a devout Christian, I just proved to you (with tons of speculation!) that we don't have an eating disorder: we have a "roll" to ful"fill." (Nice pun, I know =])

I <3 America