TOW #20- Me Talk Pretty One Day (IRB)

I decided to change my IRB to “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris. This book is a collection of essays about the authors youth and the challenges he faced growing up. One of these challenges was his speech impediment. Sedaris often writes about his issues with humor and sarcasm. Through his life he often found himself stuck in situations he didn’t like being in or doing odd jobs just for the sake of doing them. Even though in the beginning he did not want to become a writer, he had been discovered by a radio host Ira Glass while reading a diary he had written in his adolescent years. His ability to make these experiences humorous to the reader clearly makes him popular among those who enjoy comedy and also a true story.

            The reason I decided to read this book is because when I asked Mr.Yost for an actually funny book, this is what he handed me. Also, it’s not like other books because it is a collection of essays. I had heard of it before from many people, all of which said positive things. His use of comedy is also interesting because he manages to talk about things like his childhood speech impediment and his love for crystal meth and a lightheaded way. As I continue to read this book I hope to learn how to use humor as an emotional appeal and how it can evoke a response from the audience.

TOW #19- Bieber Roast

       This past week headlines have been pointing, once again, at Justin Bieber. This time, it’s not just the media making fun of him, he has also joined the party. After a long time in the making, Comedy Central finally agreed to “roast” singing phenomena Justin Bieber. He actually convinced the network to crack the controversial jokes after he decided he needed to turn a new leaf from his old disrespectful ways. He figured this roast would be a way to close the chapter of his life that was worth making fun of. However, this article written by Shirley Halperin discussed the ending of the roast. She uses direct quotes from the roast to establish credibility. The roast has not yet aired on television, showing that some inside source was needed to get these quotes. The quotes were jokes made during the roast and direct quotes from Bieber himself. The jokes included poking fun at his past lawsuits and ridiculous piles of money. However, these quotes are simply used as context. The relevant quotes are by Bieber himself talking about what he thought of the roast. First he makes fun of himself followed by a serious statement. He talked about the life he was given and his mistakes of the past due to inexperience. He claims that now he has started something new and “will not end up broken, pathetic, bitter or sitting on someone else’s roast.” Along with these quotes, the author includes a future context. What will be next for Bieber? The author of the article also touches on this, which adds to the article. Another quote from a journalist has a comedic twist that leaves the readers relieved and laughing.

TOW #18- Left shark is an artiste

     A reported 111.5 million people watched the Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday February 1^st. The halftime show featured Katy Perry dancing with animated palm trees, beach balls, and sharks. There were two sharks with comedic facial expression. These sharks went viral with their expressions as well as the left shark seeming to mess up. However, S.E. Cupp has a different opinion. She tries to convince her readers that the left shark did not miss his queue or mess up at all. In fact, he had an inspiring, interpretive, character-based dance. He was simply getting into character. The author uses multiple personal anecdotes to convince the reader that she knows what she is talking about. The first is about her appearance in the Nutcracker as a house mouse. She had to think of the deeper story of the mouse and truly become the mouse. Another personal anecdote was playing Arabian Coffee in the Nutcracker, which she also had to get into the caffeinated yet seductive character. She claims her most challenging role was an “invisible being of air” in a ballet called “Les Sylphides”. In this ballet there was no plot so she had to come up with her own character plot in order to truly become the character. These numerous experiences show that she knows a lot about dance and makes the reader consider that maybe the Left Shark did know what he was doing. Also, she has a humorous tone. She puts all of the hilarious rumors down. She states he wasn’t drunk, overwhelmed, or forgetful. He simply was getting into his character. This hilarious article ends with Cupp praising the Left Shark but leaving us with a cliffhanger. She claims that the Right Shark’s performance was not quite as good as the Left Sharks. What could be the difference? Had the Right Shark not prepared enough? Will we ever find out?

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IRB Intro Post #3- Assuming Names

For this IRB I have chosen a book called Assuming Names by Tanya Thompson. I found the book on goodreads.com and after reading the summary, I found that it's about a 15 year old girl who outsmarts numerous intelligent people as a con artist. Many of the reviews said that this was such an interesting story that it does not initially seem like non-fiction, however the author verifies that the story is completely non-fiction, every news paper article used in the book is verifiable, along with the rest of the story.

TOW #17- Visual Text

TOW #17

This ad by Samsung was released in a promotional post on twitter about a week after the iPhone 6 was released. It clearly shows the iPhone 6 bowing down like a human to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which is standing up straight. The quote says “Bend to those who are worthy”. This photo was published on social media (Twitter) which is where the bending of the iPhone 6 news was directed at. By attacking this direct audience with the ad, Samsung allows it to spread quickly threw an audience that understands. For example, I am not really into the latest and greatest technology but I knew exactly what this was referring too. Also the direct reference to the iPhone 6 from a competitor creates a comedic aspect as well as the bend reference. This refers to the iPhone 6 being easily bendable and inconvenient. This was the information that was spreading like wildfire through the Internet. It was smart of Samsung to tag along and attach their name to it. They play the words of bending. Instead of referring to this as bending like the phone actually is told to do, it’s bending like a human. Also, the simple background makes for a direct advertisement with not too much going on. The purpose of this ad is to obviously indirectly say that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is much better then the iPhone 6. So much so that the iPhone 6 actually bows down to it.