The Taming of the Shrew Epilogue/Letter (Book 4 Reflection)

This epilogue follows the events of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. At the beginning of the play, a passed out drunkard named Christopher Sly is found by a traveling lord, who carries him into his castle, and gets his servants in on a prank to make Sly believe he is a lord who has been gravely ill for 15 years. They go to a play, which is where the play itself begins. However, it is never explained what happened with Sly and his 'lordship'. It's all left to the imagination of the audience. However, I have put my imagination to work, and come up with a crazy interpretation of the events after the play. Enjoy!

It has been one month after Sly was introduced into the lord's castle. The prank went according to plan for a few days, with Sly buying every bit of the charade. However, the servants notice how much nicer Sly is to them than the lord. He allows them to go hunting with him, hang out at taverns and parties with him, and, most importantly, doesn't make them go along with any hare-brained schemes. The lord's real wife eventually replaces the servant as Sly's wife, unbeknownst to the lord. After a couple weeks pass, The lord tries to tell Sly the truth about his life, but they pretend to not know what he's talking about. Confused, he goes to his wife to tell Sly what's really happening, but she, too, pretends to not know who he is. The lord gets furious, and starts punching and screaming at her. The servants rush in and throw him out of the castle. Sly enters asking what all the commotion is about, and the lord reveals the plan himself. However, Sly doesn't believe him, claiming the lord is a "typical worthless drunkard." Homeless and upset, the lord writes a brief letter to Sly demanding he go back to the life of a destitute, and that the lord return to his rightful place. It says:

Dear Your Lordship,

Please listen, I realize that it's difficult to return to the life of a nobody after living the life of a king, but I would be most grateful if I could take back my gracious servants and loving wife. Do not worry, I will be sure to give you a complimentary breakfast as you leave.

Sincerely,

The Real Lordship

Not surprisingly, Sly rejected this offer, and thus told his servants to go out and warn the townspeople of an insane man looking to impersonate their lord. Meanwhile, the lord goes out into the town, attempting to find a house to stay at, but no one wants to host a crazy person in their home. Dejected, the lord resorts to drinking at the same tavern frequented by Sly.

Many years later, Sly has gotten even more comfortable in his role as lord. So much so, that he becomes abusive to his servants and wife. Partly, this is because of his continued habit of drinking, because  the way it was made in those days, caused a brain disorder in which the drinker develops a tendency for poor decision making and stupid ideas. Meanwhile, the lord finally decided to give himself a name, which was Drol (real creative, right?), and finally found an abandoned shed to sleep in. The experience greatly humbled him, as he realized how he took his servants and wife for granted, praying that they could know how sorry he was. One day, however, he gets his wish and even more so when he stumbles out of the tavern very drunk, and passes out not far past the entrance. When Sly walks into the tavern with some friends, he sees the unconscious Drol, and is unable to recognize him. He does, however, convince his friends to carry him into his castle, and to convince him that he is a lord.

Reading Wishlist

Here are the five books, in no particular order, that you can better believe I'll be reading in the next year and beyond. In the interest of variety, I will include all different authors for those books.

• My Prison Without Bars by Pete Rose
• Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
• The Taming of the Screw by Dave Barry
• Garfield Goes to His Happy Place: His 58th Book by Jim Davis
• Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages, 1985-1995 by Bill Watterson

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game Trailer

The Book Talk to End All Book Talks

Book 3 Listicle

The Closer: My Story is the autobiography of Mariano Rivera, published in 2014. As one would expect, the book follows the life of Mariano Rivera, through his early life as a fisherman in a small town in Panama, to his discovery by the New York Yankees, through his movement through the minor leagues, ultimately to his illustrious 17 season career pitching for the Yankees.

One thing that I noticed about this book that is quite obvious is how there are no quotation marks around the quotes. I'm not sure why this is; I think he was maybe going for a style of some sort, but it just ended up being weird. You do get used to it after a while, though.

Speaking of quotes, almost all of them throughout the book are kept short, usually not longer than a sentence. It's also rare that conversations occur in the novel, because Rivera refers to himself in the first person, it causes a tendency for him to tell what he's thinking, rather than show. I don't really agree with this version of storytelling, because I like to see more of the 'in-the-moment' action than a thorough explanation of what happened. Which isn't to say that the latter shouldn't be included at all; it does have a place as clarification for the story.

Another thing that I noticed about this book is that a lot of references to the Bible are made. As one easily gathers throughout the book, Rivera is a devout Christian, which leads to mentions of Bible passages when the opportunity arises to illustrate his point. For example, when Rivera is explaining that he doesn't concern himself with making the most money possible, he uses Hebrews 13:5 to show his reasoning.

Another thing that I noticed about the book is that Rivera omits a whole lot of regular season games. I don't agree with this decision, since the regular season is obviously an enormous part of the MLB, it's weird how it's just glazed over in favor of describing the postseason. I understand that he can't include all 162 games per season in the book, but, in this case, sometimes the only thing that is mentioned about the regular season is the final overall record. It's okay to focus on the Yankees, and not yourself, but it's important to be consistent.

Which brings me to another interesting thing about the book, which is that much of the book is focused on the Yankees' accomplishments (or lack thereof at some points) in the postseason. Most often in the book, Rivera gives an overview of what occurred in the games, for example, "In Game 4 [of the ALCS], our bullpen- David Weathers, Graeme Lloyd, me, and Wetteland- throws six shutout innings after Kenny Rogers is cuffed around early."(Rivera 83)

As for my recommendations, I would recommend this book to all baseball fans, particularly Yankees fans, because, while I learned a lot about Mariano Rivera by reading this memoir, I also learned a lot about recent New York Yankees history as well. I would also recommend this if you are a Christian looking for real life application to faith, because there are plenty of examples from the good times and bad times Rivera has gone through over the course of his career.

Truth in Memoir

There is a strong debate out there today about what is fiction and what is non-fiction.

Authors have different viewpoints on this matter: James Frey, author of the controversial "memoir" A Million Little Pieces, says that a book only has to be semi-truthful to be considered non-fiction, Seth Greenland, a primarily fiction author, says that if even an ounce of fiction is in a book, it can no longer be considered 'non-fiction', and David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, says that the whole debate is silly and the classification doesn't matter so long as the story is good.

I could go on to give my opinion, but, really, the only opinion that matters is the opinion of the author's. If an author wants to present a semi-fictitious story as non-fiction, that's fine. If an author wants to adhere strictly to the definition of fiction/non-fiction, that's fine too. The author is the one who writes the book, so they get to decide how they present it.

Adapting Book 2

The book I'm  reading right now is The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. This book has dual main plots; the first one follows New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who changed football's left tackle position with his disruptive blind side pass rush, and how coaches were forced to adapt to his power. The novel, of course, has been made into a motion picture, named simply The Blind Side. The movie grossed about $310 million, was generally well-received by critics, and Sandra Bullock, who portrayed Leigh Anne Tuohy in the film, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010. However, the entire storyline of Lawrence Taylor destroying quarterbacks in the 1980's, and how football was forever changed because of it, is cut to a brief monologue at the beginning of the movie. The movie's sole focus is on Oher's story. The reason this was done was that, to become a mainstream movie, they had to remove all the football facts, stats, and historical information, since not everyone enjoys football. Hard to believe, I know.

You are probably thinking, "Well, if the people don't like football, why in the world would they watch a movie about football?" This is because Michael Oher's story is intriguing to all people, not just football fans. Who doesn't like to hear the story of a guy who has absolutely nothing- no parents, no money, not even a stable place to live- secure the one-in-a-million opportunity to overcome everything, do what they do best, and achieve greatness. Rocky had this same kind of story, and was an amazing success. I'm not a boxing fan, but I thought the movie was really good as well.

Essential-to-keep scenes include Michael blocking the air bag from hitting S.J. in the car accident would be important because it shows Michael's strength and innate reflexes, the heartwarming scene where Michael is discovered in the pouring rain with nowhere to sleep by Sean and Leigh Anne, because, not only is it genuinely heartwarming, but it is also crucial to the plot, and the montage of S.J. asking what he's going to get from coaches if Oher decides to play there, which did in fact make it into the film, because S.J. looks cute rather than rude doing so.

The huge thing that should've been cut from the movie is showing Oher not having any clue how to play football. Oher himself has stated that he isn't a fan of the movie because he was so badly misrepresented in that aspect, telling Baltimoreravens.com, "The movie showed me not doing something so well that got me here, something I’ve always understood. Everything else is good, but them showing me not knowing how to play football, that’s what upsets me the most.” As a journalist, the number one thing to avoid doing is ticking off a source. In this case, it was so easily preventable. They could have shown Oher being on top of things in practice instead of being behind. They would have missed out on Leigh Anne's rousing speech, but it would have been worth it to tell a more accurate story. Word will go around quickly that a person was misrepresented, and therefore other sources will be more hesitant if the same director wants to make another movie based on a true story, and real people.

Book 1 Project: Fan Experience

My idea for the novel, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, is to create a sandbox-style action-adventure video game based on the novel, named 11/22/63: Time Apocalypse. The gameplay would be similar to that of The Simpsons: Hit and Run, which is among my personal favorite video games. You play through seven levels, each with seven missions, as Jake Epping, the book's protagonist. In the spirit of it's inspiration, 11/22/63: Time Apocalypse includes missions like driving to Harry Dunnings' house to save him from his abusive father, trying to navigate through the time portal, and, of course, beating Lee Harvey Oswald to his intended victim, John F. Kennedy. Also within the game are several unlockable cars, costumes, and collectables to keep people playing long after they've defeated the final boss.

Numerous memorable quotes from the novel will be portrayed in the game's cutscenes, for example, "'Yeah, but what if you went back and killed your own grandfather?' [Al] stared at me, baffled. 'Why the [expletive] would you do that?'"(King 61) When Jake asks close friend Al Templeton if going back in time and killing his grandfather would cause his present self to disappear. Also, '"If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. I'll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it's yours.” (King 580) after Sadie Dunhill survives her husband's attack by mutilating her face with a knife. The quotes will be important to be used not just to move the plot along, but also to throw a bone to people who read the book, they'll be like 'Hey, I remember that from the book," and they can tie the story in the video game to the story of the novel. I believe it would be much more enjoyable than if the game just moved from station to station. As the book says, "Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story's just a story,” (King 40) My goal is to make the game more than simply following along with the story; I want to make it an experience.

I think that this idea will work, because, like I said in the previous paragraph, because it will expand the popularity of the novel itself, as well as get a lot of people to play the video game. Nowadays, a movie rarely goes by without getting a video game made about it. This works well for the movie and video game industries, because fans of the movie get something else to be excited about, and the lifespan of the movie grows. The video game industry is helped, because, hey, there's a really good video game out based on an already popular movie. You can't tell me that no one's going to buy that video game.

In conclusion, 11/22/63: Time Apocaypse will be a sandbox-style action-adventure video game, thoroughly following the events of the novel. Memorable quotes of the book will also be included in the game, and this idea will work because it will create a very visual experience for fans of the novel, who will be able to live out their imaginations and traverse through the story as Jake Epping. The game will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS, to allow the maximum number of people to enjoy the video game. It will be available at all major video game retail stores, and online at 112263Timeapocalypse.com.

What is a Book?

 

A book is a memory. Not in the sense that books are an archaic medium that should be forgotten along with telegraphy or smoke signals, it's that they are more capable of holding memories than digital media. Take, for example, the game program. You know, those magazine-like books that you get at football games, baseball games, what have you. They contain information, stories, and interviews unique to that game. Personally, I love to collect those because it gives an opportunity to reminisce about your experience with the game, it causes you to feel a great sense of uniqueness, because you were at that game. You had a personal experience.

 

At this point, you may be thinking that I'm going to use this to trash digital media for the remainder of this post. That couldn't be further from the truth. Actually, I think that books like game programs should be available digitally, since they seldom are these days. Not without good reason, as well. Because the main value of the programs come from the personal experience of the game, most would buy them at the stadium, in print form. But, what if a disaster strikes? Say your house burns down, and your program collection, which quite possibly could be vast, is completely ruined. Now, programs are extremely rare after the event has passed, which is why it's so important to buy one at the game. Sometimes, you can find them available on the team/track's website, but most of the time, probably not. So, there you are, a lifetime collection completely evaporated, with no way to completely restock your collection. Even if you get your collection insured, the most I've seen a program go for was five dollars, and many times they're free, so a collection of, say, 25, would only be worth about 60 dollars.

If the programs were available through digital media, this conundrum wouldn't happen. You could still get the unique feel of the program because, like I said, you were at that game, and you had a personal experience. You wouldn't have to worry about losing a collection in a fire or flood, because the copies would always be there. This is why books are memories, no matter what form they come in.



Why I Read

Why I Read

 

I read, besides the obvious reason of needing to for English classes, is to relax in between homework assignments. Reading not only relaxes my mind, but also helps focus on getting work done, since I'm focusing on reading to relax, I don't have to warm back up to being focused; I can continue to ride the momentum. A major reason for procrastination is needing to get refocused after taking a break. It's extremely tough after taking a break from focusing on anything, only to try fruitlessly to persuade yourself to get back to work after having a taste of not having any work. 

I also choose to read over bike riding sometimes as a way to relax because it takes less time. A good read in between assignments only takes 15 minutes, when opposed to bike riding for 45 minutes to really get anything out of it. Bike riding is meant more to mentally prepare beforehand, anyhow. Don't get me wrong, I like both, but I choose reading when stopping between assignments.

In conclusion, reading relaxes me while in the middle of homework assignments, maintains focus, and takes less time than other methods of taking a mental break. This is why I read.