Close-reading Bingo

B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name O'

Chillin in the Nyle- Rule #6
Salinger uses common words and even slang some slang like dough to try and communicate his story.http://letsgetawesome5.blogspot.com/

Apples to Apples- Rule #4
It holds an uncensored array of words that give you the perception that nothing matters and the main character doesn’t feel a necessity in explaining any factual minutiae about his parent’s past.http://wowfaktor.blogspot.com/

As Told By Ginger- Rule #3  
he also uses figurative language when he mentions the escalator “as the handrails slid on their tracks, like the radians of black luster.” 
 http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6298112448369333548

The lost message of words- Rule#2
Mezzanine, Baker’s business like figurative language characterizes the refined workplace which he describes. Baker describes the escalators themselves that rise to his office, “They were the free-standing kind: a pair of integral sins swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight.” 
http://thelostmessageofwords.blogspot.com/

Close Reading: Transcendatalist focus in the Work Place: Nature in the office of Nicholson Baker

The lofty adjectives of Nicholson Baker’s precise and seamlessly flowing language conveys an enjoyable office where nature and man collide in a harmonious medley. The narrator relates common, inanimate objects around him, such as his “small white CVS bag” and the escalators that are rising “toward the mezzanine,” to set an everyday type, routine mood. He brings nature into the picture with a general description, “sunny days like this one,” but then delves into the results it has on the workplace. The sunlight dances through the windows, its omnipresence shining “against the brushed-steel side panels” emphasizing the handrails with “long glossy highlights.” Baker weaves the environment and workplace together into an atmosphere of peaceful focus.

Style Mapping

The tres books that I'm going to put on the style map are, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, The Mud Below by Annie Proulx, and Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy.

I would place Stardust at an elegant high, with precise denotation, and a middle sound that is neither hamonious and sweet nor discordant and bitter.
The Mud Below is poetic yet basic, it impliments common language with a simple country twang, and it has a sweet and musical sound.
In Cities of the Plain McCarthy uses a middle of the road language to both conotate and denotate during different parts of the novel, although the language implies messages, it is coarse and blunt, this low language always has a harsh, dull sound to it.

Currently

pages this week: 164 :(
I finished 1 book this week.

I read About a Boy which was pretty good. It was all about Will who basically has no depth and its his interactions with a boy, MArcus, that forces him into the reality that he is not a complex person and that what you see on the outside is all there is. He has no dimension. This realization is very sad but he tries to change it. solid.

Quarterly

I have been reading way more than I usually do. I find myself wanting to read more, expanding my genres and book selections to types that I wouldn't have read before. I've been trying to read more, sometimes late at night, or right after school, even, to my teachers' dismay, during lectures and in class. I have taken to ask people their recommendations for books and have liked some of those. My goals for the rest of this semester are, basically, to read like a champ. I want to finish some more books, read at least 200 pages a week. I want to have the elusive 1000 page week. I really want to finish first in the class in pages and top seven overall.

About a Boy

I started About a Boy this week. It is written by the same author who wrote my last book namely, Nick Hornby, and is starting off more interesting than the last. Many of the character's actions make me wonder not whether or not this really happens, but rather how often it happens in real life. The boy, Marcus, who is twelve, is basically a geek. He just moved and is living with his depressed single mother. His mother is to sad to really help him with his problems and he has no friends. Well he kind of had friends, but they started to get bullied, just like him, and so they asked him to never hang near them again. Pretty harsh for a kid around the seventh grade. He is also made fun of for a time when he started singing a song during English class, you know one of those pesky tunes that wont get out of your head, and it just happened to be during a silent reading time. He is now made fun of by his whole grade and the upperclassmen. His infamy is spreading. What a life, aye?

The real character is Will. He is a single, thirty six year old guy who, because of one mix up, is trying to get with single moms. He really enjoys his life, not displeased at all, when he mixes up two blondes. One he sees in a record shop, and the next, who he thinks is the first, he sees at a coffee shop and approaches. He starts off embarrassed but they quickly become buddy buddy and arrange for a second date. At the next encounter she tells him that she has kids. He says it doesn't bother him even though he turned down being a godfather and is trying to never talk to some of his friends again because they have kids and are "boring". He lies to her and keeps up the routine for about six weeks when she breaks up with him. The reason for the split is that her son isn't ready to be on good terms with anyone because he is still upset at his parents divorce. Now comes the kicker: 1) Will's favorite part of the relationship is the break up because she cries and its not really his fault 2) his only disappointment is that he will no longer get to share physical intimacies with a single mum 3) He plans on trying to now prey on single moms instead of just single women. He tries, unsuccessfully, for the next few weeks to meet up with single moms. Because he has gotten nowhere, he hatches a new plan: join a single parents group (called SPAT) after making up a fake child (a two year old son named Ned) so he can hook up with the single moms of the group. This is as far as I've gotten but it is very well written so far and also humorous, hopefully Will doesn't get himself mixed up in too much trouble?