Close Reading

New Ted Nugent Cologne Tested On ‘Every Goddamn Animal We Could Find’

ALPENA, MI—Ted Nugent held a press conference Monday to unveil his new signature fragrance "Heartland," which the veteran rocker touted as the most extensively tested cologne in history. "We tested that sumbitch on ferrets, weasels, deer, elk, squirrels, bison, trout, crickets, gibbons, iguanas, donkeys, capybaras, koalas, hyenas, penguins, woodpeckers—every goddamn animal we could find," Nugent said. "And, just to be extra-certain it was safe for consumer use, we injected it into a kitten's bloodstream, sprayed it on otters with open wounds that we inflicted, and forced cows to drink it through their nose. We also squirted it in a duck's eyes. Then we ran out of cologne and just started punching the duck." The cologne, now available in stores, features an ivory bottle stopper and comes in a genuine tiger-skin pouch. 

This short mock news report from the Onion is effective in creating comedy by creating a ridiculous event and exaggerating the conservative views of Ted Nugent.  The author uses stereotypical conservative extremist language "that sumbitch" to portray Nugent as base.  Ridiculous details reinforce this, including the number of animals tested and accounts of brutal treatment of animals "we injected it into a kitten's bloodstream" in Nugent's quotes, which he finds nothing wrong with.  The comedy of this report comes from the disconnect between Nugent's cologne testing and what the public usually wants.

No animals were hurt in the

Response to course material

Open prompt- I have gotten better at remembering to actually write the essay instead of rereading the passages for the entire hour.  I was able to get a grasp of the poems on the last essay.  That said, I still misinterpreted the reading, but not as badly as on the Eros prompt.

Death of a Salesman- Miller does awesome things with time in the play.  In many places, past events are happening at the same time as present events, and it happens smoothly.  I'm not sure I like it as much as The American Dream, but it is (obviously) well written, and I appreciate that.

Open Prompt

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

                  A character’s past can affect his present state.  In the case of Willy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the past actually mixes with the present.  Willy’s falsely idealistic view of the past contrasted with the dark reality of the present shows a breakdown in the American dream.

                  Willy lives in both a reconstructed past and in the reality of the present.  His hallucinations of Ben in particular overlay what is happening in the real world.  These hallucinations do not represent the actual past, and rather are Willy’s idealized reconstruction.  This is contrasted with a grim present.  In Willy’s past, for example Ben and Biff both have supernatural qualities.  In the present, Ben has died and Biff is a failure.  The house has suffered a similar deterioration.  By presenting the past as a reconstructed ideal, Miller shows that the American dream is a fabrication.

                  In Death of a Salesman, the origin of Willy’s conflict with Biff is never directly addressed in conversation.  This gap in the past pokes a literal hole in Willy’s past, and only when he is at his lowest point does his affair come to light, and even then it is in private.  Willy’s shameful fall in the past can explain the problems in the present, just as the fall of man in Genesis explains man’s current situation.  The past in Death of a Salesman is always a glossed memory, illustrating the American dream’s falsehood.