Robot Love - What is Love, to Someone Without a Heart?

For class, we read 3 poems: "Rachel", "This is How You Make Love to a Robot" and "Beam, Robot." After reading these poems, it got me thinking about the whole premise of love and robots. It made me question if robots can truly love. (Also, DISCLAIMER, when I mention robots, I'm talking about humanoid robots.) The way I think about it is if two things are attracted to each other, then I have no problem with them being together. In the case of Rachel, she was a robot that was pretty much a human in every sense of the word except for them fact she was made in a factory. In fact, for those who didn't watch Blade Runner, she didn't even know she was a robot until she was told so. I think especially in a case like this, robots deserve to love. However, this was not the first time we've talked about love and robots. In the movie we watched in the beginning of the term, "2046" had a character fall in love with an android, but couldn't be with her because it was against the law. I don't think love should be out of the realm of emotion for someone who loves a robot, let people be people.to an external site.)

Dance Dance Revolution - Toilets and the Yes-Men Generation

In class we were told to look at specific poems and to blog about them if we didn't get around to them during class so here they are...

St. Petersburg Hotel Series - 4. The Washrooms of St. Petersburg
This poem was quite humorous and brought out the non-serious side of the Desert and the tour guide. These washrooms that they described were similar to ones that I have experienced in Japan which in odd given that they are in a hotel modeled, or named, after a Russian city.

The Lineage of Yes-Men
This poem was the internal conflict between the tour guide's heritage and her ancestry. For all her life, her lineage was all "yes-men," people who constantly and consistently said yes to those in power and complied to save their own life (her father was a spy). She, an independent woman must try to break free of her heritage in order to live the life she wants to live.

Everything Before Us - Love Will Set You Free

In Everything Before Us we see a world in which your life and social status is determined by what is called your Emotional Integrity. It was interesting to see how much influence this had on the characters and they decisions they made. In this world, how well you sustain a relationship can either make or break your status in society. In Haley's dorm room, there was poster on the wall that said "Love Will Set You Free." As the story goes, we see that the two couples diverge into each other's expected story lines. At least for me, I thought Haley and Seth's relationship would be the one to continue and Ben and Sara's relationship would discontinue. What was fascinating to see was how the EI score and love, things that were restrictive and brought pain, allowed Haley to live abroad, Seth to start a new path in life, and Ben and Sara to rekindle their relationship. Wong Fu Productions were able to subtly work in the poster as a way to foreshadow the ending.

On Such a Full Sea - Closing Thoughts

This book has had a lot of interesting twists and turns but I think we all enjoyed reading it. I think the most interesting part about this whole book was the world that Chang-Rae Lee set up. I mean, it was so indicative our own society, with the class separation of the charters, open counties and the working towns. I think Fan's journey reflects and reveals a lot of the horrible truths not only about the world she lives in, but about the people who run it. However, I don't think that Fan ever wanted to "fight" the system and barely took it into consideration on her journey. I think this sentiment reflects how each of us have some "issue" with the system in our own world, but don't try to, or even find it necessary, to "fight it."

On Such a Full Sea - Murals

The section on the mural made by the sisters, about Fan and her journey thus far and still to come, struck me as creepy but really interesting. Even after reading and thinking more about it, I still find it really odd. However, I think this form of direct foreshadowing creates a sense of confusion and comfort-ability in the world of Fan. On page 259, it says "Naturally, they began pushing for Fan to reveal what 'happens' to her." This idea of happening is furthered at the beginning of the next chapter. It reads, "The funny thing about the tale of Fan is that much of what happened to her happened to her." This quote, from the perspective of the people of B-Mor, reveals that the things that happened to her are what they are but it always seems like there is much more to it than just that.

On Such a Full Sea - 2nd Post

Epigraph and Cover - an intro into "On Such a Full Sea"

Two parts of a book that we frequently forget to look into are the epigraph and the cover. On the cover, we see a blank face with a head of black hair. One of the epigraphs is a few lines from the song "Only the Young" by Journey while the other is a few lines from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." I believe each of these are able to tell us a little bit about the story and we can see some connections to the beginning of the book. Let's start with the cover. The lone head of hair around a blank face suggests that pretty much anyone can be represented as the "main character." We can see this in the use of the "we" as the narrator. The story of B-Mor is everyone's story and this ambiguity leaves the reader with a mystery of who is important. In the first epigraph,