Battle With Death

Death is the end of our journey, the only thing that is inevitable. Death is always haunting our life’s waiting for the exact moment to strike and take our lives away from us. Death is feared, hated, and respected. It doesn’t have a time or a place it just gets to you in the moment less probable. For some death means salvation, for some others it means destruction. Due to its unnatural nature death is seen as something to be respected and it creates a feeling of insecurity in us. It is one of the themes that are most recurrent in our literature and arts since it is the only thing us humans can’t control. In Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, example he represents his ideas over death’s triumph by showing how in different cities death has taken over the history of these cities making them mold to it. In "Triumph of Death" by Brueghel we can see a connection between this piece and Calvino’s book since the theme of death is expressed. Although they both show death Calvino shows death as something that is inevitable but that will not triumph over the cities, while Brueghel shows death as triumphant over anything in its way.In Calvino’s book, there is a section of cities called Cities & Death. In this section of the book Calvino describes cities that have experienced death and that have changed because of it. These cities such as Adelma, Clarice, and Eusapia, have been affected by death but they are still up, they are still moving and life has brought them up again.
In Clarice for example plagues have hit the city, and it has decayed several times “Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendor…” (Calvino 106). In this city, although death has tried to burry it underground, survivors have always brought it back up from the ashes. One factor that makes death triumph is that it destroy anything on its path leaving no trace of life. Death has not triumphed in Clarice because what really matters is what the first civilians from Clarice left as their legacies. The real Clarice is always reconstructed, this symbolizes how death has tried to destroy this city but has never triumphed. In Brueghel’s painting we see how death has taken over this place leaving nothing more than lifeless corpses and destruction. Brueghel’s painting shows the desperation of the humans on this piece. Fire, skeletons and suicide show how human’s hope of life is lost. Everything they had is destroyed, the skeletons, representing death, are killing the ones left and to end their suffering some others are jumping over cliffs to die.
In another city, Eusapia, for example people have made death less feared. They have created an underground copy of this city to burry their death so that it seems as if they had never left the city. “And to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city, underground.” (Calvino 109). Another of the factors why death triumphs is because of the fear people has to it, which sometimes makes them succumb to death and leave their destiny in its hands. In this city, inhabitants have decreased the fear factor in death by creating this underground city so that it doesn’t seem so bad. The leap from life to death is not so hard. In Brueghel’s piece, people show their fear and desperation towards death when we see the expression in their faces, when we see them jumping over cliffs to end their suffering.
In Adelma, another city in Calvino’s book, we see how the cycle of life, although disturbed by death is not stopping. Although many people are dead or are dying, there are new generations being born who will, in the future take the places of the old and will again lead the city. “ I thought: “Perhaps Adelma is the city were you arrive dying and were each finds again the people he has known. This means I, too, am dead.” (Calvino 95) in this city we see how although people seem dead and old, they are still living. Marco Polo says he is dead too, but this can also mean all the other people are alive like him. This shows another factor of the triumph of death, which is inevitable. In this city people seem dead but they are not therefore, death has lost is inevitability since they will not change really when they die. In Brueghel’s piece death is inevitable since there is no sign of salvation, either they die killed by the skeletons, or by the armies, or they suicide, or they are already dead.
Death may or not be triumphant it depends on how you depict it… Factors such as Fear towards it, its inevitability, and its erasing of any trace of life makes death triumphant. In Calvino’s book, cities such as Adelma, Clarice, and Eusapia, have come closer to making death less triumphant by creating underground copies of the city, or by bringing it up again, or finally by loosing their life like characteristics without dying. We may say that death will never be triumphant if the legacy us humans leaves teach future generations, to live life to the fullest and to never loose their hope.

Transportation in Bogota: A Day In The Streets Of Bogota PART II

Take a nap

Eat some fruit

Use the bridges

We don’t want any accidents

Follow the rules because they are watching you

Keep them safe

Our new acquisition:Everybody wants to be in them

Running out of fuel?

Transportation in Bogota: A Day In The Streets Of Bogota

You got to have patience

Push on the gas and press the horn

Respect the line to get on the bus

Cross the street while the light is red

Eventually you will find one

They WILL take you home

You may also ride a bike

But stay in your track

NEED FOR SPEED

Styles Upon Styles: Informative Articles

As I read the articles I found out that there are different styles in the same kind of informative articles. When I read "Heeeere's...Conan!!! I found out how the author used the title to make emphasis on how known this phrase is thanks to the huge amount of programs Conan has made. The style of this article does the emphasis on how Conan has lived his tv career. I also see the inverted pyramid technique used in this article since first the author gives the big picture of what the article is going to be about and then he starts giving out some details about Conan and his present. The article first talks about the show, and how Conan presents his show. The article ends up showing how Conan and all his crew will move to record the show in a different location than they currently are. The article not only says this but is most concentrated in showing how Conan is so popular, his road to becoming this popular, and his live in the television media. The next article, I found they used also the inverted pyramid technique. They describe the town of Mcallen, Texas, a sunday morning and then they give out the most important piece that will be the topic of the article. How they have the "lowest household income in the country" also has  " one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country." The article shows the big gap that there is in this town. It is not easy to think of the extremes that this town faces. They are a very poor town, one of the most poor in the country but their health care is the most expensive in the country. I found this article similar to one of the documentaries of Michael Moore Fahrenheit 911. In his documentary Moore shows some of the unbelievable things that happened in Bush's presidency. He uses satire and sarcasm to show his feelings towards Bush making him seem as if he had not done anything. In this article they also use satire as to show the big contrast that there is in the town. Were people cant pay for health care and it is the most expensive in the country. The last article is about a graffiti artist, JA, who lives in New York. I found the style of this article similar to the kind of narrations of Pirry , a colombian journalist that narrates urban problems in Colombia and other problems in the world. We first see the history of Graffiti and its influences in the streets of New York. Then we meet JA, the character in the article which we learn about. We see how he thinks about Graffiti and we get some of his ideas of what live is. It is kind of an urban story that shows the graffiti society in the streets through the eyes of JA. After reading these three articles I learned that there are many ways of writing and article and using different styles in order to make your ideas stronger is the best way to write. Although the three articles are informative they all use different styles. These styles depend on how the author wants to pass his ideas to the public.

Away from Liberty

 

Gulliver is imprisoned by the Lilliputians and is used to entertain the nobility. This two chapters of Gulliver's Travels show how the Lilliputians which are very small compared to Gulliver take away his freedom and use him as a source of entertainment. I don't know why they can control him if he is 12 times their size.

"Some time after, 

asking a friend at court how they came to fix on that determinate number, 

he told me that his majesty’s mathematicians, having taken the height of 

my body by the help of a quadrant, and finding it to exceed theirs in the 

proportion of twelve to one" (30)

I don't understand if they are so small compared to Gulliver why doesn't he goes away. He is then given his liberty back after his pleadings pass through the Council and the majesty of Lilliput. But he has to follow 9 articles to prevent him from escaping or destroying any thing in Lilliput. It is kind of silly to think that Gulliver Being so big compared to them is treated like an animal in zoo. 

There is something that I connect to this chapters in Gulliver and it is called the Elephants Metaphor. This is something that happens when Baby elephants that are born captive are chained to strong pillars so that they cant escape. Since they are small and their muscles haven't developed fully yet they obviously cant break the chains. They grow up with the idea that the chains are unbreakable and they loose all their hope of being free. When they are at their maximum size they can break these chains with no effort but since they have the memory of the chains being very strong they don't even try to break them.

Although this is not exactly what is happening to Gulliver it is very much alike. He is stronger than his capturers and can easily escape. The articles that they give them after they give him a partial liberty are nothing that he can't break but there is something that doesn't leave him escape. As the Elephant Metaphor, Gulliver is much bigger than his captors and can escape if he wanted. His metaphorical chains are really nothing compared to what he can do. 

Macbeth adaptations

This activity we produced in class for the last couple of weeks was very insightful. The final day, the presentation of our scenes was very fun. I really enjoyed seeing my classmates act out their scenes and how they adapted them to a time period in the history in Colombia. Although it was kind of hard to see easily what time period it was because we could not create a big scenery the costumes and some small props gave us hints to what time in history it was.It was very funny to see the costumes of my classmates and how they acted their scenes. This activity also was good to understand the real art of plays. Since Macbeth doesn't have scene directions we had to create them as we thought it would be better. We created our scene directions in order to show emphasis, and power. It summed up all that we had learned about composition, in the essay of Macbeth and in the art analysis classes we had. It also was a good end to Macbeth since we could see the most important parts of the play acted out. It was good to act these scenes because we could show how our ideas about the play and its themes were. Over all this activity was very fun and I learned many things about it.

The Train OF Life

The train is a very strange story just as the others I have read in Carvers Cathedral, again I come to the conclusion that Cravers style is one of a kind and that he depicts humans as completely weird creatures. This short story starts with a creepy image of a women giving a punishment to  a guy that tried to steal from her by aiming a revolver to the guy and letting him know that what he did was wrong. Then she goes to a train station apparently very late at night because no trains are leaving and the place is desolated. then a women and an old man enter the station. The lady talks to Miss dent saying that she knows she is listening to the conversation she has had with the old man all along. She also tells Miss Dent that she maybe doesn't want to talk but that at some time something will occur to her and it would be too late. They keep taking the old man comes in with his cigarette lit at last and then the train comes and the story ends. I found a topic that makes me wonder of life in this story and it is what we really are here to do in life. What is our purpose? It is not completely connected to the story but this is what came to me after reading. Miss Dent passes through to events one simple and the other one aggressive in a short period of time and it doesn't seem to affect her. why do events like these seem to pass in our everyday life and most of them we just take for granted. Do they signify nothing? What are we supposed to do with our lives, which are full of events that are simple, strange, happy, creepy, intense, and unique. What do these events mean are we supposed to see something in them. Did we came here for a purpose and if yes what is it? those are some of the questions I got after reading because the girl seems to not care much of what happens in her life. In general our lives flow normally and we think they are normal but why dont we think that everything happens for a reason.