Scrapbook Presentation

By Kyle Beauchamp

AmericaBy:Allen Ginsberg

Excerpt from America

• I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia. I'm addressing you. Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a chinaman's chance. I'd better consider my national resources.

America continued

• My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and twentyfivethousand mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go. My ambition is

to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America Assesment

• Allen Ginsberg had great success with his poem America, it is a very easy read and is certainly not boring to say the least, which are opposite to gerneralizations that some people get when they read poetry. A couple of reasons for the great success of this poem are Ginsberg’s unorthodox format and his informal diction. His word choice is that of if he were having a conversation with a friend or acquaintance. These two writing techniques make this poem entertaining to read. Hearing Ginsberg rant on about his personal life and personal beliefs on politics is very shocking to see in a poem, which in term makes it entertaining and fun to read. Ginsberg’s style of writing will leave the reader either humored or pissed off, but regardless of whether the reader loves him or hates him, he is more than likely going to leave the reader sitting there with their jaw dropped.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

• I enjoyed this specific scene from the movie for the humor that it brought from what was and could have been a life taking experience and somehow turning it into a life changing experienced. I thought it was funny the language the little boy used when he was contemplating his suicide over

losing a soccer game.

What’s the point of living scene

• Eugene!• Don’t you hear I’m jamming?• How is it possible for the better ream to lose? We

didn’t deserve to! The ball just wouldn’t get in! And they won it in the finals! So what’s the point of living when life is so unfair and everything? Just tell me this because you’re the smartest person I know. If you don’t give me one good reason to keep living and tell me what’s the meaning of life, I’m gonna do this.

Scene Continued

• Step down from the table.

• No. First tell me.

• Step down from the table and I’ll tell you.

• (kid steps down from the table and his brother slaps him in the face)

The General By: Dispatch

The GeneralLyrics

•There was a decorated general with a heart of gold, that likened him to all the stories he told of past battles, won and lost, and legends of old a seasoned veteran in his own time on the battlefield, he gains respectful fame with many medals of bravery and stripes to his name he grew a beard as soon as he could to cover the scars on his face and always urged his men onbut on the eve of a great battle with the infantry in dream the old general tossed in his sleep and wrestled with its meaning he awoke from the nightjust to tell what he had seen and walked slowly out of his tent all the men held tall with their chests in the air, with courage in their blood and a fire in their stare it was a grey morning and they all wondered how they would fare till the old general told them to go home He said: I have seen the othersand I have discovered that this fight is not worth fighting I have seen their mothers and I will no other to follow me where I'm going So,take a shower, shine your shoes you got no time to lose you are young men you must be living Take a shower, shine your shoesyou got no time to lose you are young men you must be living go now you are forgiven but the men stood fast with their guns on their shoulders not knowing what to do with the contradicting orders the general said he would do his own duty but would extend it no further the men could go as they pleased but not a man moved, their eyes gazed straight ahead till one by one they stepped back and not a word was said and the old general was left with his own words echoing in his head he then prepared to fight

[CHORUS]

go now you are forgiven

The General Assessment

• I enjoy this song because it is one of the few songs that I enjoy for its lyrics. Even though the music is enjoyable the lyrics are what brings this song its greatness for me. I like how it tells a great story throughout the song and if you were to take the lyrics out it would be a successful short story.

The Bridge Builder

By: Will Allen Dromgoole

The Bridge Builder• An old man, going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening, cold and gray,To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,Through which was flowing a sullen tide.The old man crossed in the twilight dim;The sullen stream had no fears for him;But he turned, when safe on the other side,And built a bridge to span the tide."Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,"You are wasting strength with building here;Your journey will end with the ending day;You never again must pass this way;You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide--Why build you the bridge at the eventide?"The builder lifted his old gray head:"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,"There followeth after me todayA youth, whose feet must pass this way.This chasm, that has been naught to me,To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

The Bridge Builder Assesment

• This poem has become so successful because not only does it have a well thought out and creative rhyme scheme, but there is also a hidden moral to the story/poem. In this poem Dromgoole leaves behind the message to be generous and to think of others. He does this by in the story the old man builds a bridge when he is already on the other side to help the next people to cross the river.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

By: Flannery O’Connor

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

• There is one line in Flannery O’Connor’s story that is probably one of my single favorite lines in any short story that I have read it is, “She would have been a good woman,” The Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

Assessment • I really like this passage because it was basically true.

She was kind of an off putting person throughout the story but could find the good in people when her life depended on it. I think the story as a whole was successful because of O’Connor’s characters made the story. The characters were spot on the way people were in that time period ranging from generation to generation in the south. She did a very good job trapping the south from the fifties with her characters and dialogue creating a sense of realism and verisimilitude.

The Call Of The WildBy: Jack London

The Call Of The Wild Passage

• He saw once for all that he stood no chance against a man with a club. He had learned the lesson and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction to the reign of primitive law, and while he faced that aspect uncowed he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused.

Assessment

• What makes this story so successful is first of all Jack London’s diction and language. His word choice throughout the entire story is masterful. Also his depiction of the struggle to be on top of society. Everybody wants to be the leader of the pack. It also has gained success by portraying Darwinism, as it has a kill or be killed mentality throughout it, and depicts survival of the fittest.

Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction Scene

• Miss Pascal! Miss Pascal. • Mr.Crick.• Hi.• Hi.• Hi.• Hi.• I’m glad I caught you. • Oh yea. Why?• Cause… I wanted to… Bring these to you.• Really.

Scene continued

• Yea. • So…You can’t accept gifts but you can give them?• Listen…• Oh, That seems a little inconsistent doesn’t it Mr. Crick.• Very Inconsistent.• All right I’ll tell you what I’ll purchase them.• No• No, No, No, really I’d like to purchase them. What are

they?• Flours.

Assessment

• I really enjoyed this scene because first of all I would have never had the creativeness to give flours to a baker. That is just poetic. And second I really enjoy the sarcasm in the conversation when she asked to purchase them. It is just a really creative scene and is probably my favorite scene in the entire movie.

Magical ThinkingAugusten Burroughs

Magical Thinking Passage

“I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions”

Assessment

Although many people challenge the veracity of Augusten Burroughs's books, questioning his career, addictions, and memories, his books are quite successful. Burroughs captures the reader’s attention and holds on to it. This particular passage sticks out to me because he reaches out to the reader and relates.

The Year of Living BiblicallyA.J. Jacobs

The Year of Living Biblically Passage

"I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverent agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can. I now believe that whether be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance."

AssessmentI believe that The Year of Living Biblically is

successful due to the fact that Jacob’s decision to dive head first into the Bible and follow it as literally as possible for an entire year, grasps the reader’s attention from the beginning. His book is appealing to religious readers and secular readers. I was drawn to this particular passage because the author is honest. People have different perceptions on what is sacred, but that doesn’t mean anyone or anything is less important than the other.

To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee

To Kill a MockingbirdPassage

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Assessment

I believe that the book To kill a Mocking bird was successful for the reasons that it is forward and it is told in first person point of view by a six year old girl. The book is about determination and honesty. The reason why I chose that particular passage is because of the use of symbolism. I took interest in the fact that the mockingbird represents innocence. I believe that Atticus was stating that sometimes people kill innocence and also, to have respect.