Week 14 - I Think We're All Bozo's on this Bus

I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus leaves the reader confused as to what’s truly going on and what causes “Uh, Clem’s” motives to hack into the computers and holograms. This audio drama proposes the issue of holograms and robots taking over, “educating” the people of what happened in the past and describing what cavemen in the past achieved. The animatronic President also vaguely “resolves” the problems that people face with positive-sounding messages, and no real ways to address these. (Cloning is also a subject that’s brought up and treated as a normal thing apparently?) These actions prove to show contradictions and fallacies; and Clem uses similarly contradicting riddles to break the technology as well.

Week 07 - Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone provides many complex moral issues and spiritual challenges. Harry chooses to give up his normal life (which was not a very good one) to join the school of wizardry. He goes through many challenges to adapt to this new life, such as learning the skills necessary to become a wizard, what supplies he needs, and how to play games such as Quidditch. 

He’s faced with the moral dilemma of either solving what happened to the break in at Gringotts or avoiding it and staying out of trouble, and later deciding to go against the school to find the Sorcerer’s Stone before Voldermort can reach it. But because of the challenges Harry Potter faces, and the rest of the issues he faces throughout the book series, he becomes a true hero and an esteemed wizard figure, looked up to by many and becoming an iconic figure in fantasy writing.

Week 03 - A Wild Sheep Chase

A Wild Sheep Chase interests me with how it leaves each character without names. The protagonist’s name is never mentioned, and forgets the name of his girlfriend, who is mentioned several times. Even the name of his friend, The Rat, is a bit suspicious to me.

I was concerned as to why the main character’s girlfriend never showed her ears. At first, I assumed that showing them would end up cursing someone or something. And sure enough, they seemed to have possessed some sort of power that made her more attractive according to the protagonist and passerby’s. By the end of the novel, they no longer have power over him. I still have no idea what’s so significant about her ears, but figured they were mentioned so often for a reason. Maybe? I’m wondering if this is a part of Asian culture, or just some weird sexual fetish.

I kept wondering what the Sheep Man’s goal was. To cause terror upon the world or haunt the main character? But either way, this supernatural creature is a mysterious being, and something that I personally find to be a better horror antagonist than the typical satanic demon or cursed doll.

Week 13 - All At One Point

After reading, rereading, and looking up summaries for All At One Point, I speculated what takes place during this short story; that the Big Bang is being personified as a group of beings and that Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0's positive energy was what caused it. I liked how everything was kept brief, as if the reader already knew who these people were and what kind of environment they lived in.

I feel like I understand the concept of the Big Bang a little better because of this personification. I was given a humorous story of a group being “packed like sardines” that ended with sudden mourning over Ph(i)Nk0's death. The Big Bang Theory is a complicated discussion in of itself, so I believe it was necessary to tell a story like this to better understand it without getting lost in the scientific details. While this story uses Sci-Fi elements that elude to this theory, and ridiculous alien names for each character, the story itself feels more like a slice of life reading; how the characters lived, the rumors they spread between each other, and how they eventually got along at the end.