Reflections on Readings

Here is a collection of my thoughts as a reponse to the readings that we've dicussed in class recently:

Burning Chrome ( I had read this the friday it was instructed to be read)
I found this reading to be a boring and confusing collection of technical and uninteresting terms used to project what was supposed to be an interesting story of a cowboy and one-armed man hacking into Chrome's system. A game for geeks in a world where people are losers. It was a headache to read and stupid and disagreeable to modern times and morals. The author even tries to create sympathetic and jealous type reaction of the pathetic social lives of these two men.

It was a rather sadistic way of looking at how technology could/can/and is interacting with humans today. Women are ideolized and have strength as opposed to the men who follow and suffer from a life of wanting something else. The technology in this story is refered as a way of life. It has become another form of man, almost like an extention of mankind.

Ice is mentioned like an obstacle, the complications in achieving goals. The whole hacking process that the two main characters are in seems entirely stupid and pointless. So what? Who cares? Their lives are very isolated and it seems that no one cares about them and that they don't care about anyone (yes, even Rikki). I don't get the point of this story, it only reminds me of those kiddie cartoons of superheros that use random technical words to sound cool and high tec.

Love and Napalm

This reading seemed rather disturbing. It was a sadistic experiment using women, children, torture and other grotesque elements to stir sexual arousement in mentally ill patients and children; an observation and emphasis of the reactions to the brutality of the Veitnam War and its "newsreels" on patients used as human lab rats.

Why would an author write about such horrors? It doesn't even portray a reality. It can be compared to finding happiness in hell. The matter-of-fact tone in this report seems to be calling for a debate. Who would agree to participate in such a perverted experiment? The author has probably grown up in a disturbed household and has a psychotic reaction to too much exposure to sexual and violent things.

The Atrocity Exposition

As a human race, why does it seem that we work so hard to demolish everything that we create? Why is there competition? And what is this facination and obsession with Elizabeth Taylor, why her in particular? The Atrocity Exposition like the other pieces of literature mentioned above is also confusing and arguable. They definately show the "how" process of coming to a conclusion about a specific topic or general idea. They are all written in the form of someones mind, flickering with random images of planes, war, sex and women. In this piece there is the theme of fear portrayed throughout the context. Hiding behind cement, avoiding war with death, and distractions from billboards, thoughts and women.

The form of writing seems to be broken up into random sections. The characters are hardly introduced and the setting seems like a deserted world with choppers, planes and bombs. Suburbia is often mentioned perhaps it is being used to symbolize the abandonment of homes.

It is difficult to link together the Doctor, Elizabeth Taylor, World War III, the Travis' and Catherine Austin. A very confusing message with hard to follow storyline. Was the white Pontiac destroyed or NOT destroyed? "A wrecked white car..."(40, English reader). "Half an hour later the young woman drove away in the white Pontiac" (42).