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Secondhand Music by Toby Lester Kirsten: I marked the quote: "Was this music, or just background noise" (1st sentance, second paragraph) because it is such an unusual and interisting question. This is the point in the essay where I'm really interisted in reading what this author has to say; I have never thought of this question myself, but yet it is such a fresh way of thinking about all that noise that exists in our lives. I marked this primarly because this is the kind of surprising question/idea that I would like to explore in a personal essay. I also appriciated how the author spends a couple paragraphs explaining the emotional strings attached to music and how this has affected different moments in history. I feel that by bringing these points up he adds some more depth and importance to the question (above) that he's trying to explore. If he had left these paragraphs out, I would have still read and liked the essay, but at the end of it, I would have felt like, "well, that's interisting, but why's it important?" The quote, "Secondhand music enters our minds, speaking a lanquage that we understand, even if we don't consciously listen" is interisting because this is such a good, yet creepy, conclusion that can be supported by what the author has found about sound and its relation to our emotions. I feel like this is such a satisfying conclusion that has been well developed and built by the author; it offers a new idea about something that most of us ignore. I think that this essay's theme has to do with the importance of really listening and noticing the things that seep into our everyday lives. Seemingly unimportant or unnoticable things, like background noise, have the potential to disrupt or negativly shape life around us. I believe that the author wants his reader to begin noticing these small factors so that he can change them and improve his life--"listen to what you hear--and, if necessary, go out and get a new refrigerator". Kathryn: "What this music means as an accompaniment to a day in the office -- or a night in bed, for that matter -- is worth considering" This quote underlines the idea that things affect you when you are not paying attention. Even if you have no idea that it is happening, tiny aspects of your life conspire to manipulate your emotions, mood, etc. I marked the beginning of the second page, where it talks about government censorship of music, because this also highlights the power of the background, and how the background can be manipulated for control, etc. Also, this reminded me of Things Fall Apart, when many Africans only accepted Christianity after hearing gospel songs. The music acted on their emotions, and prompted them to convert when they ordinarily probably wouldn't have. "Background noise is not just background noise. Secondhand music enters our minds, speaking a language that we understand, even if we don't consciously listen." I thought that this quote basically summed up interesting idea that the essay presented. It makes you think about things that you don't normally notice, and how maybe a good portion of what affects you day-to-day, is things that you don't even notice. She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body by Cynthia Ozick Kirsten: This piece is in total contrast to how I normally precieve an essay. Ozick states that the essay, "is the movement of a free mind at play", yet I have never felt this way. The word "essay" makes me think of the struggle I normally face in finding quotes, and hammering out sentances about a book or a theme of a book--I usually associate essay-writing with writing that is assigned, not writing that flows from my imagination. This piece, makes me feel more warmly to the word "essay". I also noticed the quote, "the essay does not allow us to forget our usual sensations and opinions. It does something even more potent: it makes us deny them". This is a new idea that I had never connected to the essay either. The same is true for the passage: "the genuine essay may be the most self-centered...arena for human thought ever devised". While this piece makes me more excited to write an essay, it also confuses me. I don't understand how these ideas can realate to an analytical essay about an author or book--is this piece talking just about personal opinion essays? -------------------------------------------------- Both of these pieces re-shape how I normally think of essays. I usually associated essays with stiff writing that doesn't necessarily relate to a theme. These two pieces have opened a new way in which essays can be creative and explore topics that truly interist me. Kathryn: I marked the beginning: "An essay is a thing of the imagination...it is the movement of a free mind at play". Also, "...if there is an opinion, one need not trust it for the long run". These make me think about how it is to read an essay, and be completely absorbed by what is going on in someone else's mind. When this happens to me, I forget about my own opinions, and find myself just floating along with the author. For instance, the quotes from Hazlitt and Emerson: they say completely different things, but as I read each of them I am not thinking about myself very clearly, so I understand and agree with both. It is like a crazy trip as the authors mind "meanders, slipping from one impression to another, from reality to memory to dreamscape and back again." "To seize the hum and sit it down fo others to hear is the essayist's genius." The essayist is writes the things that everybody thinks sort of in the back of their minds. When reading essays helps in expanding your view of the world, because you may encounter ways of looking at things that would never have occurred to you. "The essay is, as we say, personal". Personal thoughts are able to make me think about things from other people's vantage points. This helps me in formulating new ideas of my own, etc. Kirsten's three essay topic ideas: 1) My love of jelly filled doughnut--the taste, texture, and enjoyment that goes into savoring the occasional sweet--will tie to a theme regarding how people have begun growing dissassociated from their food (eating bland diet food, food that may be healthy, but that offers no flavor), and how it's sometimes more important to have something that you truly love every once and awhile 2) Noticing how a week can pass and at the end of it, I can't remember what I've done or accomplished--relate to theme of how people can end up "sleep walking" through the day and how this can result in wasting moments of your life. 3) My expierence here of trying to blend in compleatly--look swedish, act the same, and not be noticed, like while I'm shopping, as an American--could relate to theme of our (?, maybe just my?) desire to shed an old identity in order to discover a new one. (I think that this is sort of similar to a question you assigined us to write a 2 paragraph answer to last year that asked about something like this. I also wasn't sure if this might be a better topic to write about when I return from Sweden because this is still a pretty new expierence and I don't know exactly how everything will turn out. What is your (class) opinion?) Kathryn's three essay topic ideas: 1) What it means to accept change, and how little things affect your future and who you become as a person. Sometimes I am more than ready for things to change, but sometimes changes catch me off guard and I feel traumatized, like I am losing something ( some part of me). 2) In going with the basic idea of Secondhand Music, how light affects you. Like in our school, verses the full-spectrum lights the schools in Alaska has. How I feel like crap in the dressing rooms at Old Navy, but very flattered in Banana Republic. A sunny day verses a rainy one, etc. 3) How who we are is essentially a collection of memories. What it means to forget something, or to remember. How you change. Bailey's three essay topic ideas: 1. Thinking or picturing something going well will heighten the probability that it will go well. 2. Does the idea of politicians bashing one another add a negative or positive mark upon their morals and character. 3. The Number 23- How movies can impact peoples lives or shed light on certain ideas. After seeing the movie- we went insane trying to find links with the number 23.

Notes on Bernard & Poe What does Bernard's essay have to do with writing? (How do preconceived ideas affect what you write?) Kirsten I think that Bernard's essay realates to writing in that when starting to write a piece, some idea of what you want to write about or what you believe would be a good theme must be present. This is like the pre-concieved idea that a scientist must have in order to begin an expierment. But it's important to allow your writing and the direction that the piece takes to go where it may. While writing, it might be okay to keep your pre-concieved idea in mind, but the piece shouldn't be forced to fit into the idea that you originally thought of--like an expieremnt's data sholdn't have to be bent in order to match the original hypothesis. For example, when I have written essays or personal opinions pieces in the past, I start out with an idea of what I want to say and what I think the theme should be--my pre-concieved idea. But as I start writing, the piece may not quite fit with what I had first thought would be written, so I had to allow the writing to just follow whatever shape it was taking and then reviese what I wanted the piece to say or mean. Otherwise, the writing sounds forced. Kathryn In order to begin writing, it is necessary to have some sort of inspiration or idea. You cannot begin a piece without some preconceived ideas about what you want it to be. Once you begin, however, the elements may not fit together how you thought they would, and you have to make changes. Sometimes the whole idea of the piece may change. It is not possible to write when you are just trying to fulfill the idea that you had to start with. Bailey A writer must start out with an idea of what he is going to write about-pre-conceived idea, but then as he writes he must let the paper and its ideas take shape and go in the direction where it needs to go, not necessarily what you want it to say. Don't force a paper to go somewhere-let it flow to where the ideas take it. Garnet The writer needs to learn from pieces he or she writes. S/he needs to correct past mistakes in new pieces. Preconceived ideas are necessary in writing because the writer has to have an idea of what to write about, but, like Bernard said, the preconceived idea can be bad if the writer allows it to block his/her new understanding of other ideas. How must a writer approach an essay topic? Kirsten I believe that a writer has to first notice something in the world that intrigues him--an observation or just an interisting idea. Then the writer needs to be able to think about why he is curious about this observation or idea, then evaluate how or why it might also be important or affect his readers' lives or they way they precieve the world around them. Kathryn As I said above, the writer must have an idea that prompts him to write. He then must gather material; from his mind, data, etc. As he gathers material and begins, he must constantly re-evaluate his original idea, so that he can form a coherent piece of writing. Bailey First they must reflect upon the idea.. Where is it going, what does it mean in greater perspective. Garnet First the writer needs to observe whatever s/he decided to write about. Then s/he needs to decide what specifically about the topic s/he will write. Why did we read "The Telltale Heart"? Kirsten Well, besides its being a classic and a very well known story, I imagine that we read it because it relates to how pre concived ideas can disrupt, or in this case, ruin a person (see below). Kathryn The Telltale Heart is an example of someone's absolute conviction that everything taking place in his mind is fact. He does not really operate based on responses to what is happening around him; he acts only on his personal ideas. Bailey To see how pre-conceived ideas can alter or change a person or push them to do something, see something or think something that may not be completely right. How does Poe's story relate to Bernard's essay? Kirsten Both Bernard's essay and Poe's story are talking about pre concieved ideas. Bernard's essay describes how a pre concieved idea can turn the results of an expierment into something false. If a scientist observes an expierment with a pre-concieved idea of how it will result, he will inevidably bend what he sees to fit what he believes should happen. Poe's story is similar in this idea. The narrator says: "It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night." (p. 3) This idea that the old man's eye is evil is the narrator's pre concieved idea. Because he believes that something is true, everything else around him changes to fit what he believes, ultimatly leading him to murder the old man out of insanity. Kathryn In Bernard's essay, he argues that observation must be impartial, so that when reason is applied, everything will be taken into account. In The Telltale Heart, the main character does not observe what happens, and then draw logical conclusions. He is completely convinced that his ideas about things are correct, despite evidence that may point to the contrary. This method of operation, which is the opposite of what Bernard advocates, leads to his destruction. Bailey Both relate to the idea of preconceived ideas. Bernard's essay says how an experiment can be changed by preconceived ideas, maybe leading it into the wrong direction. Pre-conceived ideas can make a person see only what they want to see or only truly see something that benefits them. In Poe's story, the narrator thinks that the old man's eye is evil (pre-conceived) which leads him to killing the man. Because he believes the eye is evil--nothing will cause him to change that already decided upon idea.

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