Assignment 6

Orlean's tone is very understanding and almost sympathetic. This tone develops throughout the course of the article because in the beginning, she seemed more unsure about taxidermy by saying: "The championships were held in April at the Springfield, Illinois, Crowne Plaza hotel, the sort of nicely appointed place that seems more suited to regional sales conferences and rehearsal dinners than to having wolves in the corridors and people crossing the lobby shouting, "Heads up! Buffalo coming through!"


Then towards the end, after having seen so many different pieces and hearing so many stories, her idea about the competition being at the same Crowne Plaza hotel shows more clearly: "The mere experience of waiting for the elevator -- knowing that the doors would peel back to reveal maybe a man and a moose, or a bush pig, or a cougar -- was much more exciting than the usual elevator wait in the usual Crowne Plaza hotel"

Seems to be a more positive response than before, aye?

Orlean seems to picture her readers as people who aren't exactly opposed to taxidermy, but naturally find it morbid; for God sakes it involves composing art of dead animals. But she lets us know: "To be good at taxidermy, you have to be good at sewing, sculpting, painting, and hairdressing, and mostly you have to be a little bit of a zoology nerd."
Now this is different from just saying "you have to be a zoologist" because the term "nerd" seems to be universal. In addition, "nerd" adds emphasis because not only are you intensely studying animals (zoology), you are obsessed with it. You adore it; you have a passion for memorizing the name of each tooth in a panda's mouth (do panda's even have teeth?)

This article enabled Orlean to express the amount of time and detail taxidermists put in to the profession. It may be more difficult for her to comprehend/ place detailed facts behind reasons accountants love their job.

Assignment 5

It seems like Orlean wrote this article to enlighten those of us who are so opposed to taxidermy. Although it may never get the attention of an all-natural animal lover, for someone that at least eats meat  or perhaps just willing to read, it softens up and justify, if you will, what taxidermists do. She describes the extent of the  role, stating that people at this competition often make a living of taxidermy which surprised me. I would never think that the moose head over my great uncle's fireplace is what provided him with the ability to put food on his table. Actually, the only way I would think that a moose head could provide dinner is if it was cooked, but that was before I read "Lifelike".

Orlean made the topic of "Lifelike" a taxidermist's job description and the seriousness of being involved in taxidermy- being a "zoology nerd", being sure that every detail is on point, staying up-to-date on the "new style of eyeballs" available this year. Through Orlean's topic, the enhanced detail of her article revealed her purpose, which was to create enough imagery through written text to make the audience go "hmm I never knew taxidermy was really that serious".

Reading "Lifelike" brought me under the impression that Orlean wanted readers to take a step back from rude comments about others' interest in taxidermy and actually visualize a day in the life of it. This is someone's "nursing degree"; by giving a patient a dose of too much anesthesia, they could die. The point is no matter the profession, precision is key, and I mean VERY key when it comes to taxidermy. Orlean lets readers know once again by conversation she hears: "The taxidermists take the competition very seriously. During the time I was in Springfield, I heard conversations analyzing such arcane subjects as exactly how much a javelina's snout wrinkles when it snarls and which molars deer use to chew acorns as opposed to which ones they use to chew leaves. This is important because the ultimate goal of a taxidermist is to make the animal look exactly as if it had never died, as if it were still in the middle of doing ordinary animal things like plucking berries off a bush or taking a nap."

1. Based on "Lifelike", did it change your thoughts on what taxidermy really means to some?

2. Did reading this make you want to dig deeper into  the life of a taxidermist to see if the detail listed in the article was true?

Standing By CP

The controlling purpose of my essay is to zoom in on different reasons why Sedaris chose to make fun of others in the setting he chose (airport).

Reflecting On Revision

Ebony's draft immediately caught my attention on what her take on the article "Standing By" was. Although we both included in our papers that the article was written sarcastically, she seemed to have thought that at one point, Sedaris may have actually been ranting about the people he observed, reevaluated his opinions later by self reflecting. My take was that he was never seriously talking about these people, that maybe this is all a non-fictional tale of a previous fictional "David Sedaris". Perhaps he was (and could still be) this person who has such a low self-esteem issue that his way of avoiding having to deal with himself, his release was/is to take it out on others. It is always easier to admit to and find someone else's flaws rather than your own. I believe we both came to the same basic conclusion of a sarcastic outlook, it was interesting to find that maybe at one point, she felt he meant some it and his opinion evolved while I thought sarcasm was throughout from the start.

I think she and I touched on many of the same things, although I did see that she noticed that the article happened to be written around election time, where people all over were into judging the former candidate Barack Obama based on a lot of assumptions, not facts. I did not look at it that way and that is actually a great point. Politics are one of the most frequently argued issues worldwide.

Ebony stated in her paper: "I think Sedaris wrote in a sarcastic, witty tone so the reader can feel the emotions he was feeling when he was thinking and reacting to certain things because we all tend to feel the same way while annoyed." I believe that is an excellent thesis statement although it is not in the beginning. I also believe that it is properly placed. Due to the way she wrote the paper, it would not necessarily flow had she included that in the beginning. I wrote: "I found Sedaris’ writing to be critical to the human race only to a degree of sarcasm. It seems as if he wrote the article to ridicule the natural, unconscious behavior of humans so that by reading his composition, we would then become conscious of the fact that do indeed tend to be selfish in our thoughts until it comes down to ourselves. Although we made similar statements, this was found at the beginning of my paper, in the introduction. It just depends on the writer. That is was makes each writer unique, their personalities reflecting into their writing style.

Now that I have read a wonderful draft with excellent word choice, I definitely have some work to do on my own paper! I think mines is still very unorganized and has a lot if editing that need be done but that is why it is a rough draft, emphasis on rough.

My Weekend (Tiffany)






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Assignment 4: Choices

Since I believe the piece of writing is satirical, I feel Sedaris made the choice to do so because it definitely gives an alternative perspective than stating society needs a change as far as judgments go. He first makes us feel like idiots (in a good way!) by seeming at first to be in attune with how society as a whole instantly stereotype people based on how they dress, what they say, and their actions. Then he adds a small paragraph towards the end about how it could very well be an internal insecurity that we release externally by talking about other people so that we no longer feel insecure since we have found someone else that seems worse off.

* To be added to.

Assignment 4

Sedaris touches on some societal things we all do unconsciously such as looking at people that surround you and judging them based on what they are wearing. After rereading several times, instead of interpreting the story as if Sedaris stereotyping humans as i had before, I took another approach and believe that the article has a much better chance of being a satirical piece, a lesson to society. After saying mean things about each person that he encounters throughout the airport, Sedaris finally mentions the fact that all of these events that surround us could simply be a test of the mind; are we really so cruel, always looking for someone to blame? Or do we just want to be heard and need the attention?

Sedaris is living in a political time when the article was written, where Obama had just began serving  his first term. Of course everyone has their political biases and opinions and most of the time, they are debatably strong biases and opinions!

As Sedaris strolls through the airport, it seems as if he wants his readers to have this vivid image of the people he sees everywhere. Sedaris describes the older woman with her two "beautifully dressed"grandchildren, the red-head with the baby and lank braids, "Mr. Mustache", and even described the guy behind him from the khaki shorts down to his baseball cap attached to his waistband. Details this far in depth to the point where you literally feel as if you were standing next to him paints a pretty clear picture of just how badly he wants us to visualize what he lived. Some of the description words he used while depicting those around him were words that assisted in swaying readers to form an opinion on how to feel or at least how Sedaris may have wanted readers to feel. For instance, after neutrally describing the red headed teenager, he goes on to change our opinions about the teen from "average teenager" to "red-headed modern Stevie Wonder". So in a matter of just reading a few more sentences, Sedaris had my visualization go from impartial to all the way on his side based on the Stevie Wonder comment. It just makes me wonder why a young man with red hair would want to wear beaded braids similar to a blind man had back in the 70's. Without Sedaris having added all of those extra details, he would not have been able to reach me in any way. Yet he goes that extra length to describe everything, giving him the ability to influence.